Check yourself

As he strode up the driveway, I could tell that he was mad. My neighbor’s jaws were clenched tight. He had that slight twitch of a man who was clearly fighting to overcome the primal urge to bite someone. He pointed at me, shaking his finger and his head simultaneously. “You know what you need to write a column about?” he said through his gritting teeth.
I’ve heard that before. Oftentimes, the column topic is not exactly the type of thing I can write about (“Hey, guess who has a rare disease AND a mistress!!!”). But in this instance, he had a very good angle: “Shouldn’t you have to have a certain level IQ to use the self-checkout line at the grocery store?”
BRILLIANT!
I could not agree more. I love the self-checkout line. I am fairly certain that if we were to have an amateur grocery clerk competition, I would easily be a finalist. I am a flash at taking care of my grocery business. I have even — I kid you not — had the clerk standing watch remark at my amazing ability to get in and get out of the checkout line. (I think his exact line was “Wow, you must have somewhere to be, dude.” But I will chalk that up as admiration.)
So I clearly have proven my ability to make it through the checkout line. Whether that’s tied to IQ or some odd, fairly useless talent I have is for another discussion. But he had experienced the painful and frustrating delay of someone who clearly had not earned the right to check themselves out. There are several categories of these people:
1. People who don’t understand basic quantities. See, if it says you can only bring 15 items to the self-checkout line, and you have three carts loaded to capacity, you are not allowed there. Yes, even if you break them up into 600 piles of 15 items. You are not clever and beating the system. You are defeating the entire purpose, and all it takes is one teensy crack in the dike of civilization to send a flood of inefficiency down on humanity.
2. People who fight with the swipe machine. I will admit that on occasion I have swiped my card, only to realize I had it upside down, backward, was using my library card, etc. Things happen. But if you even consider uttering the phrase “stupid machine” or pause to consider punching the keypad, clearly you should go to a line less designed for speed and efficiency. (On a related note, you may not be aware, but new federal laws require you to be done at a drive-up ATM in less time than it takes to bake an apple pie. Failure to comply will result in your tax rebate being sent to Britney Spears. Also, conducting three separate transactions at one visit to the ATM will get you sent to Guantanamo. I wouldn’t joke about federal laws, so be careful out there.)
3. The produce-challenged. When you go through the checkout line, you have to enter the four-digit code that identifies your fruits or veggies. If there isn’t a sticker on it, you have to look it up on the guide above the scanner. If the preceding sentence was news to you, you probably shouldn’t be going through the self-checkout line. And you probably shouldn’t keep shouting “ASPARAGUS!!!” at the screen, as if it will recognize what you are talking about.
Look, I am not suggesting that folks shouldn’t be at the grocery store. I just think that the self-checkout line needs to be reserved for (a) the fleet (b) the agile and (c) the really-in-a-hurry, which in comparison to everyone will always be me.
While we are talking grocery stores, I need to address one issue that I have addressed in previous columns, columns which I am shocked to see have not been adopted as a guidebook for life by everyone in the community. Folks, those big lines out in the parking lot? You know what goes there? Cars go there. You know what doesn’t go there? Shopping carts.
A while back, I said that there is no justifiable reason to leave your shopping cart abandoned in a parking lot. I would like to alter that slightly. There is only one justifiable reason to leave your shopping cart abandoned in a parking lot, and that is a swift and immediate alien abduction (it must be alien; even a mildly conscientious kidnapper would allow you to put the cart up).
So the next time there is a cart loose in a parking lot, I can only assume that one of our fellow grocers has been whisked away to a spacecraft and will one day be returned to the planet with new and exciting knowledge to share. Such as how to ring up asparagus.