You're Outta Line!

Everybody has had the following experience: you step into one of those “ten items or less” check out lines, and then the person in front of you decides to slap down 35 things, 16 coupons, and a plastic baggy full of pennies. This is followed by the urge to pick up a can of soup and hurl it at the offender’s head, (this won’t do any damage due to the target’s thick skull, but it will make the thrower feel slightly better).

Well, the other day, I ventured into such a line and found myself standing behind some woman with 30+ items in her cart. Quickly shifting my eyes from her to the giant illuminated “10 items or less” sign above, I was hoping she would get my subtle way of indicating to her that she had entered the wrong line. She didn’t get the hint. Oh well, I figured either she didn’t see the sign, or saw it and didn’t understand it, (illiteracy can lead to these checkout line mix-ups).

However, just as I was ready to give her the benefit of the doubt, she started placing ten items at a time on the checkout counter, and separated each group by one of those little red dividers. After creating three or four such groups, she then proceeded to tell the clerk that each group was for someone else, (“this one is for me”, “this one is for my husband”, “this one is for my grandkids”). So clearly, she read the sign, and interpreted it as, “Ten items or less, for each person you know”.

I’ve never seen these “10 items or less” line policies actually enforced. I am going to write my congressman and see if we can make it a national law. Who’s with me!?