I’m next in line. I have three items in my little handbasket and a $20 in hand. It’s lunch hour and traffic’s picking up as workers come in for deli food. People are lining up behind me. But the lady at the counter has only 20 or so items. This should go quickly.<\/p>\n
But nooooooo.<\/p>\n
[rant]<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
First, the clerk rings up all the groceries then starts to ring the three tomato plants in the back of the cart. Only then does the customer — I’ll call her Gertrude; she looked like a Gertrude — say, “Oh no, those need to be run up separately.”<\/p>\n
Okay. So off the tab go the plants. Leaving a grocery total of $33.65. Gertrude swipes her debit card. Uh oh. It’s got only 21.22 available. (I can see all this on the embarrassingly public electronic screen.)<\/p>\n
Deep into her grocery bags Gertrude goes rooting, looking for something to return to the store. Shall I put back that one? No, not that one. Maybe … no. Okay. This one.<\/i> The process takes more deliberation than the Syrian peace talks.<\/p>\n
Eventually one small item comes off the tab. <\/p>\n
Not enough. Not even close.<\/p>\n
More rooting. Another item eventually gets subtracted. It’s a tiny bottle of a fancy spice, $6.55. Good choice, Gertie. <\/p>\n
But still not sufficient.<\/p>\n
More rooting. Yet another painstakingly chosen item goes back to the store. <\/p>\n
The line gets longer and the clerk calls for another checker. People behind me rush over to the next lane before I can. Oh well, no big deal. After all, we’re nearly done, right?<\/p>\n
Right?<\/p>\n
Finally, Gertrude has pared her order down so that it’s just $1.09 over what her debit card can handle. She decides she can afford to pay cash for that. More rooting, this time to find $1 here and a dime someplace else.<\/p>\n
Done!<\/p>\n
Uh … no.<\/p>\n
After that she decides to buy back an item she previously deleted. $3.98. More rooting. There is a $5 bill right in her hand<\/i>, but for some reason she doesn’t want to pay with that. Goes hunting for change …<\/i><\/p>\n
Eventually, the sweet saint of a clerk gets Gertrude through all her transactions (though I’m thinking she never did go back and ring up those tomato plants). Meanwhile, the line’s been getting longer, mostly with hungry workers clutching deli goods, probably counting the already-short minutes of their 30-minute lunch “hours.”<\/p>\n
Never once — not once! — in this whole process does Gertrude look back at the people in line and say, “I’m sorry for taking so much time.” <\/p>\n
All the shoppers (including, somewhat to my surprise, me) minded our manners. Little eye-rolling. Not a single snide remark. Nevertheless, I was busily thinking like a curmudgeon. Because I am one. At least when it comes to this subject. Now — safely within my Internet lair — I can admit all.<\/p>\n
And I ask you: Guess who issued the debit card Gertie used to pay (then un-pay) for her groceries? Just guess. Oh, you say you already figured that out five or six paragraphs ago? Yeah. It wasn’t all that hard, was it?<\/p>\n
Isn’t that the case? Every. Single. Bloody. Time? The only bit of credit I can give Gertie is that at least pricy spices are a taste upgrade over the cookies, chips, pop, sugar cereals, and ice cream that are usually being put back on the counter by people who forget that even the taxpayers’ well isn’t bottomless. <\/p>\n
My gripe isn’t against people who are desperate enough to need food stamps; that could happen to any of us, these days. But what is it with these jerks who can’t do elementary arithmetic and can’t be bothered go to an ATM, pick up a phone, or log on ahead of time to check their available balances? Does “entitlement” imply “entitled to waste everybody else’s time, as well as everybody else’s money”?<\/p>\n
[\/rant]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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