Grocery Store Mania
How does one play? Take four self-check stations, minus two broken. Add three checkouts with cashiers. Add seventy-five customers ready to check out.
First, I got in line for the self-check. I only had 5 items. Then I surveyed the prospects, two of them were broken. One of the two remained was clogged by a woman slowly checking out a huge basket of groceries. The other had a man accompanied by a veiled woman trying to scan items. Maybe I'd better try the cashier. I moved to the first (Express) checkout line. As I push my cart to the conveyor, a woman steps in front of my cart. I ignore her and start to unpack my cart, but get bumped from behind by a teen trying to push a cart past me.
I gave him a questioning look. "I'm with her," he says, pointing his chin in the direction of the woman who'd jumped in front of me.
She was small; he was small. I could take them both. Not worth it, I decided. I did a very Christian eye roll, gave them a very charitable disgusted look and made a noise, but I moved back to the self-check. Better to wait than to fight for a place in the line, figuratively or literally.
The man and the veiled woman have put several containers of ice cream in their bag and hit "Pay".
The attendant says, "Sir, only one of those items scanned."
And here I thought he was nearly finished.
The attendant takes the items out of the bag, looks at each one. She places the scanned one in the bag.
"These need to be scanned." She steps back.
He passes one carton in front of the scanner, but at a distance. He places it in his bag.
"Sir, that didn't scan," repeats the attendant.
He scans it. "Aren't these buy one, get one free?"
I'm thinking, "They're all free if you can get by without scanning them."
"Not that brand," says the lady. "The house brand is buy one, get one free."
He scans a box of sherbet. "This one should be buy one, get one free," he asserts.
"No sir", says the lady. "It's on sale for $3.99"
He scans the remaining two items and places them in his bag. The total comes up and he walks out of the store without purchasing anything. Without stealing anything either.
About 5 minutes ago the other scanner became free. The lady with the boatload of groceries finally finished. But I was too fascinated with the shoplifting scam in front of me to care that another person behind me took her place.
The attendant steps up to the machine, clears the information, and takes the abandoned product away.
My turn. Without incident, I scan my groceries: 1 package whole wheat spaghetti; one bottle mushroom marinara sauce, one bag salad, one container cherry tomatoes, one bunch bananas, one bag grapes.
Guess what we had for dinner.
