The Experiment

Idyllic day today.  Writing, reading, cooking, spending time with the boys.  At 8:30 p.m. I decided to go to the store for cold medicine for the kid.  

I always go to supermarket B, but supermarket A is probably closer to home.  And I like it as well as B.  Supermarket A is a bit spendy.  Upscale. The produce is fresh, aisles orderly, and they carry the occasional specialty item.  I turned right to go up the hill to A.

I brought my list and patted myself on the back for doing the shopping at the odd hour - so much quieter and less crowded.  Supermarket A was just as expected:   tranquil, well stocked, and had everything I needed.

I pulled my cart to the checkout and saw that my two choices were the cashier at a 15 items or less (should say fewer) station, or self service cash out.  I manuevered to the self service with my oh, about 30 items. 

Self service is designed to help all of us appreciate the underappreciated job of a supermarket checker.  I never choose it, because I don't have the patience.  So when I do end up there, it's a trial.  No, I could not figure out how to get the scanner to read the bar code on my organic Fuji apples.  The harried cashier came with her prowess and showed me the trick. 

Presently, the bagging area to the right  of the scanner  was full but I still had half a cart of items to check.  I tried moving a gallon jug of milk from the bagging area to the cart and the machine reprimanded me. 

Eventually, after stuffing boxes of sandwich bags and packets of crackers into every corner of the bagging area, I noticed the "place item in my cart" button.  I started placing scanned items in my cart.  Then the machine beeped at me and stopped. 

Harried redhead checker came by after a 5 minute wait, and mumbled something about the computer only allowing four items to be placed in the cart.  Of course it jammed up again after the next four items.  And redhead was stuck in the customer service counter with a long drawn out return.

A young girl behind me was struggling with a carton of eggs at another self service station.  "Excuse me" she said.  No one seemed to hear but me, although she looked hopefully in the direction of two busy checkers.  "Good luck," I said.

I considered just paying and leaving the last of the groceries, but the computer was stuck and would not even let me pay and go.  I stood there holding a package of plastic storage containers mid-air, and tried to find my zen.

Redhead eventually sailed by with her magic wand and released my machine to work again.  She mentioned that I should not have been waiting because after all she had fixed my machine remotely "ages ago".  So, oh!  I got to feel stupid as well as annoyed. 

I brought up the futile subject of having followed the rules.  "Your check out stand says 15 items or less (should say fewer), and since I had more than 15 I had to come here, but the station does not allow me to bag this many items anyway.  Clearly there is no where to go in order to pay if you are buying more than 15 items this time of night."  "Oh, you should have just come to my checkout...."  "I should have not followed the rules," said, I, stuck as always on the letter of the law.  I was conversational, trying not to be the angry lady.  But really?

As a sort of last insult (one for the road), my final item was a bag of white onions, unmarred by a bar code sticker.  Too proud to flag the flying checker, I studied the laminated produce code cheat sheet.  Yellow onions, red onions..... no white.  Finally she hurried by, and I told her the onions did not have a code.  Yeah, she rescued me again.  And I paid my $78 without further incident.

20 minutes to check out and pay.   I hate Supermarket A.