This post on Dooce reminded me of an equally painful but totally opposite experience at our local grocer.
It had been a marathon of a day for me and Caro. We were tied up with some excruciating social activity during the day, and were pressed with more that night, so we decided to take the hour we had between these to get some crucial grocery shopping done.
We were in a hurry. We zoomed thru the store, grabbed only the items that were on our list (for once) and made it up to the checkouts. This is the one local grocer that doesn't use the self checkout machines, preferring to use live people for checkers instead.
I surveyed the checkouts as we approached. Besides the express lane, there were only 2 checkers: a young(ish) girl who has always in my experience been friendly and speedy, and an older lady who, while also friendly, I tend avoid because she's slower than a paralyzed turtle in a wheelchair being pulled by a team of snails on qualudes. We got into the line with the younger checker of course, despite the fact that her line was substantially longer.
As we waited, the older lady became free and beckoned us over to her line. Before I could reason a response (like "No"), Caro had pulled our cart into her line, not knowing what was about to happen. This was going to suck.
When you're in a hurry, any impediment to your progress seems to make time stand still. Well, the next five minutes were the slowest five minutes I'd ever experienced.
This woman seemed to move in super-slow-motion, while the other checker cleared out her line at a break-neck pace. We didn't want to be impolite, as complaining would have only made her panic, she'd then make mistakes and therefore be even slower, but behind my polite smile I was yelling at her telepathically: MY GOD WOMAN COULD YOU MOVE JUST A LITTLE BIT FASTER??? CAN I GET YOU SOME CRYSTAL METH??? HOW ABOUT IF I SET YOUR UNDERPANTS ON FIRE???
As she finished the transaction and handed us our receipt Caro had this look on her face I would compare to that of someone who'd been hypnotized into thinking they were some sort of farm animal. This was punctuated by the victorious chorus of some obnoxious song on the in-store speakers: La - La - LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH - LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH - LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH - LLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
It had been a marathon of a day for me and Caro. We were tied up with some excruciating social activity during the day, and were pressed with more that night, so we decided to take the hour we had between these to get some crucial grocery shopping done.
We were in a hurry. We zoomed thru the store, grabbed only the items that were on our list (for once) and made it up to the checkouts. This is the one local grocer that doesn't use the self checkout machines, preferring to use live people for checkers instead.
I surveyed the checkouts as we approached. Besides the express lane, there were only 2 checkers: a young(ish) girl who has always in my experience been friendly and speedy, and an older lady who, while also friendly, I tend avoid because she's slower than a paralyzed turtle in a wheelchair being pulled by a team of snails on qualudes. We got into the line with the younger checker of course, despite the fact that her line was substantially longer.
As we waited, the older lady became free and beckoned us over to her line. Before I could reason a response (like "No"), Caro had pulled our cart into her line, not knowing what was about to happen. This was going to suck.
When you're in a hurry, any impediment to your progress seems to make time stand still. Well, the next five minutes were the slowest five minutes I'd ever experienced.
This woman seemed to move in super-slow-motion, while the other checker cleared out her line at a break-neck pace. We didn't want to be impolite, as complaining would have only made her panic, she'd then make mistakes and therefore be even slower, but behind my polite smile I was yelling at her telepathically: MY GOD WOMAN COULD YOU MOVE JUST A LITTLE BIT FASTER??? CAN I GET YOU SOME CRYSTAL METH??? HOW ABOUT IF I SET YOUR UNDERPANTS ON FIRE???
As she finished the transaction and handed us our receipt Caro had this look on her face I would compare to that of someone who'd been hypnotized into thinking they were some sort of farm animal. This was punctuated by the victorious chorus of some obnoxious song on the in-store speakers: La - La - LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH - LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH - LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH - LLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
posted by Marc at
4:13 PM
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