Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Expressing Yourself

I usually use the Express Line at the supermarket, though it rarely saves me time. Invariably, I get behind the one person in the store who has figured out how to spend 15 minutes purchasing a loaf of bread and a quart of milk. Recently, I was trapped behind a young man who, with 8 people in line behind him, waited for the cashier to tally up his items and then strolled over to an ATM machine for the cash to pay her. That was a new one. I can only assume that he was competing for "Asshole of the Year" and needed one more point. More often I am behind: tourists with enormous wads of foreign money; lost souls with sacks of loose change; sketchy-looking characters with checks that their mothers wouldn't accept; and once, a monumentally confused individual who tried buying his groceries with first a Social Security check and then his rent receipt.
That's why we need the SERIOUS EXPRESS LINE. Here you could do exactly 3 things: 1.) Deposit your items 2.) Present an appropriate amount of U.S. currency 3.) Take your change and groceries, and leave. Period. The slightest deviation from this process would result in the cashier pulling a lever that would drop the shopper through a trap door in the floor. Next!
So where does the person go after being dropped through the floor?
Who cares!

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