Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for December 12, 2020

Two bits says she’s also over her account balance and has to scan half of it back

Gocery grambling

And she’s sure to have a fistful of expired coupons.

It’s easy for me to choose. I always get the slowest line. Don’t line up behind me.

The house always wins.

(sigh). There’s a concept called “speed queue” and they use it in banks these days, mostly: One queue of people waiting for the very next teller.  Why they don’t do it in grocery stores is because they don’t WANT to. They want us to wait around next to the impulse-buy items in front of the checkout station.

Not sure i would bet my cart on any one of them.

What’s a checkbook?

In my favorite store… there is the Self Check-out. The line for Self is very long! It goes from the middle of the store… through the Seasonal items and is close to being in the Produce! The other lanes are every other… for Social Distancing reasons. But most are the lower numbers. And those lines are fairly long. I live in a very superstitious zone. The line for Check-out Lane #13 is usually short. 13 Is my favorite number for weird reasons. I always aim for it in the store. And even though I am slow moving… I am usually out of there before all the others I was dancing around in the isles of sundry items.

I once got behind what I thought was the shortest line. The store, I’ll call it Malwart, was pushing their credit cards. The cashier has to ask each customer if they want to apply, so the one person ahead of mechosed to apply. He had to fill out all the information while I watched all the other lines moving much faster. When it was my turn, I mentioned to the cashier that they should set aside those customers aside. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who complained. They now just have people walk through the store to push their credit cards.

The worst line is the one where the checkout person and the customer have an incredibly slow paced conversion about trivial BS while the next customers are seething!

At least Wiley used the correct “fewer” rather than the commonly used ungrammatical “less.”

my wife got in line today behind yet another clueless granny who waited until her turn at the register to start searching for her loyalty card (of course). after waiting patiently for a couple minutes the exasperated cashier finally told granny to just hold her purse up close to the scanner. granny was surprised to hear the scanner beep and then immediately resumed looking for her card…

LOL! This used to be one of my biggest pet peeves! It was always an older lady who would wait until all of the groceries were rung up, and THEN start searching through her purse for her checkbook. And then slowly write out the date, the store name . . . and I would be seething. I would go to the store with my check all filled out except for the amount. Of course no one writes checks for groceries anymore – or at least I haven’t seen anyone do it for years.

Now where’s that pen?

FINALLY someone has a sign saying “12 ITEMS OR FEWER” NOT “12 Items or LESS”. It is not hard to understand the difference!!

At least the sign says “or fewer” and not “or less”!

A corollary to this is the person in line for minutes at a fast food joint. They stand there for a fairly long time and don’t look at the menu till they get to the counter then can’t decide what they want!!

In the last eight years, I’ve only seen one person at the grocery writing a check.

May I use your pen? What is the date? I need to write I note that I spent the money first…

I like it when somebody with a cart-full of items hits the express lane (12 items or less) and the cashier asks them “which of those 12 items in your cart did you want to buy?”

THANK GAWD FOR SHOPPERS!!! The one luxury I permit myself.

Last time I was in a grocery store I was behind two men with a carriage bulging with groceries for a party. As the cashier rang it up, one guy bagged, refilling the cart. Then, when it was time to pay… the card’s no good, don’t have the cash, make a call got help, they walk away. Then we wait for the manager to get there to void the whole sale, and the staff have to restock the “purchase” – including meat. I was there so long, the expiration date on some my purchases passed while I was waiting.

Thank you for using the word “fewer”

The worst is when you use the self checkout lane & there’s someone who doesn’t know how to use the self checkout system. But the local Sam’s Club is using the long snake line for checkouts & it was really long on Thursday.

Don’t you mean ’Gamboling" W!ley?

Using a checkbook? Then use curbside pick-up.

Good one!

Got stuck behind a guy yesterday with about 20 coupons and who had to do exact change. I only had six coupons and used my RewardsCash.

Don’t see checks much more, but now they pay cash & dig thru their purse looking for the last few pennies. One time I just dug a quarter out of my pocket and put that on the counter for them.

When I was a kid, the commissary at the base went to “form one line and wait for the next available cashier”. It took ages for the housewives to figure out that it really was faster.

It doesnt matter. Whichever line I choose is always the slowest. I’ve resigned myself to this and no longer get upset.

I have a talent for invariably picking the wrong line. It will appear to be a short line or the people in it have few items. Then suddenly there’s an issue with a credit card, a price check, etc. Maybe I should pick the the opposite line of my initial choice, like George Costanza did on Seinfeld!

Just out of view, the “i haven’t finished shopping yet, everybody wait while I go get” customer line.

And this is usually followed by 5 minutes of ensuring that the checkbook is placed back in the exact place from which it was removed.

Scan & Go – bypass the checkout lanes – show total to checkout person at door and your done.

The slowest line is always the one I’m in…

… head down in the purse, “I know I have a nickel here, somewhere.”

Good.

This will be on the FOOD CHANNEL before Valentine’s Day.

And the slowest checker is always in the “20 items or fewer line”

I noticed a lot of stores are using the “store” discount card rather than holding up lines with people going through their bags for the physical card or trying umteen different phone numbers.

Or those who still don’t know how to use a debit card after 20 years and countless coaching sessions from exasperated cashiers and customers alike. And this ALWAYS takes place in the Ahem- “Express Lane 15 items or fewer” Or the “I only bought 6 things”, but I am going to use this time to needlessly complicate this transaction by searching for coupons or ringing it up as 5 separate purchases, while haggling over the price or inane pointless chatter to keep the dozen of us behind her rolling our eyes and muttering coarse invectives under our masks! Express Lane indeed!

Been there, done that !

No matter which line I finally decide to get into, it always turns out to be the slowest moving one. What’s worse if I later decide out of frustration to jump over to a different one, that line becomes the slow one.

If you don’t want to wait, go during off hours. Then you can shop at your leisure and actually read the ingredients and expiration dates on packages, etc. Most of us who are the normal family shoppers realize that ‘waiting’ is our choice — we can stand there and fume (raising blood pressure but not making things go faster) or we can do something — prepare to pay, check the phone, plan the rest of the errands, etc. And, the next time you get ticked off by someone taking ‘longer’ than you want, just hope that you don’t get up there and suddenly realize you forget the milk — or your debit card has slipped to the bottom of your purse — things like that happen to everyone. You just notice it when they are in front of you in line.

Okay, I have been there but I noticed today that occasionally the new options take about as much time. The Apple Pay may be down, so you gotta use a card. The card slot doesn’t work so you have to slide it. None of that works and you have to get the manager. …sheesh!

Most annoying…Shopping early to beat the crowd there were only six folks ahead of me, but only one checker.The wrinkled overripe tomato who thought she looked like Jane Fonda in her spandex clown suit had her cart overflowing with Items and she insisted they individually be placed in a separate bag.The checker was exasperated and embarrased.After 12 minutes and counting she called the manager for help.The line behind me grew to sixteen very angry people…They finally found someone else to open a line.When I, Finally checked out “Jane Wrinkles” was still pushing buttons on her debit card account…My total time for six items …28 minutes…Yeah and the self checkout was not up and running.Most of us were there early because we had other important things do do…Amazing how friendly we got watching that self centered hag do her “Bussiness”

now they hunt for their plastic card, or in the bottom of their bag for some more cash. Or — worse — they are good to go when the roving cashier wanders up to say “this machine doesn’t take credit cards”. Life

It’s not just checkbooks – amazing how many people appear to be surprised that you have to pay for the items you are buying.

I worked in concessions as a volunteer for the local theater. Six of us had 10 minutes to serve up to 300 people during intermission. Did some people think they could spend the whole 10 minutes making up their mind? Yes, they did. Was my suggestion of using electric cattle prods to speed these people along implemented? Sadly, no.

Been there done that!Wait till they then take out there change purse to count pennies or look for a pen in the purse! :-)

Wow. I’ll bet Mr. Miller never expected a totally non-political cartoon to garner as many totally non-political comments as this one has!

I worked on retail for 14 years, and so many check writers will stand there like a bump on a log until everything is rung up, then start digging for their checkbook.

It never fails. The line I’m in is the slowest.

One of the good things about Walmart is that you only need to sign your check. The machine will fill out the rest. And you get to keep the check also.

Always look for the most experienced cashier. They either know what to do about “problem customers”, or they know to call the manager right away.

I was delayed by a few seconds by someone paying with coins. For once I don’t mind, because we need to put more coins in circulation. Then later I held up the self-checkout line because I couldn’t get the plastic bag separated from its neighbor and opened up. Normally I would lick my finger to get some traction, but you can’t do that any more!

The choice between two alternatives is often phrased as a 50/50/90 proposition.

When I make the 50/50 choice, 90% of the time it’s the wrong one.

Just one thing to say: remember to thank the workers at your local grocery store. They have to put up with everything you all complained about for an entire shift. Not to mention the people who won’t wear their masks properly.

How about a lane for folks buying less popular cigarettes that are kept in the locked glass case that’s 50 feet away from the nearest cash register?

You left out self service.

Most of the stores, and certainly grocery stores here, have multiple self-serve stations and way fewer live cashier lanes. Both staff and customers (self-included) have learned lots about using them. One soon learns to check an item for a UPC when you pick it up. The thing I still have trouble with is produce, which is surprisingly complex and detailed. It’s not just a Tomato – is it Roma, cherry, vine-ripened, organic, or?… My first job sixty years ago was bagging groceries (for $.65 p.hr.), and how to do that well has come back.

No one brought up the little mom and pop stores that cannot change even a fiver. I know. Ran into a lot of those when I lived in San Francisco 50 years ago.

Murphy Guarantees it.

The trouble is always other people.

Wiley, they can’t crowd together nose to tail like that anymore. Our markets have signs “stay behind this line until the person ahead has left.”

I don’t like waiting extra minutes for someone at an espresso bar to get some elaborate coffee-flavored milk drink. I want my straight espresso and I want it now. :)

I haven’t had a physical check book for at least 15years!

Nice job, Wiley, for saying, “20 items OR FEWER.” So many people get it wrong, and grocery stores don’t help. Thank you.

Recently, a 20-something gal was gripping, as she dug through her purse for exact change, how she hated being a girl!