Grocery Store Derelicts

Here's something that drives me crazy. Every time I go to a grocery store I seem to get stuck behind an employee of the store who is also buying items... at the store. You know the type too. Not the teenager whose parents made them get a job because they didn't understand that sitting in the basement smoking pot and listening to T-Pain wasn't a real occupation. Not the managers straddling the line between Corporate America and, well, sitting in their basement smoking pot and listening to T-Pain. (Side note: Just because you wear khakis and a polo, and you get to tell people when to take lunch, does not mean you have a good job. Don't act like you're Sam Walton because you are the law when it comes to the price of bananas.)

I'm talking about the women, ages 40 to 55, whose life revolves around the store they work at. The kind of person who uses their madatory back support that velcros in the front as an accessory to their work attire. (Hmm, I think floral print garage sale T-Shirt and high water stonewashed jeans from '88 with elastic waistband will go PERFECTLY with black back support!)

Anyhow, I always wind up behind these people in the "express lane" with about two things (think Vaseline and a cucumber) and I always think to myself, "How can they possibly have 10 items or less?" Their entire cart is filled with shit. And then it turns out that they do only have 4 or 5 things. The rest of the shit in the cart is just their own belongings. A coat, a thermos, a bag filled with miscellaneous knick-knacks, another bag filled with yarn, a fanny pack, a coin purse, other store items that they'd bought on an earlier break but hadn't brought home yet, a small bag of toiletries, etc. It's like somebody came upon a congregation of bag ladies and constructed a grocery store around them. I worked at a grocery store once, and I am proud to say I didn't drag my world around with me wherever I went. So then they start shuffling through the detritus, trying to find the things that they actually have to pay for. It's always vegetables too. Especially Eggplants and Squash. So after shuffling around for a long time, and pulling out their vegetables, and paying $1.96 for them (all from the change purse), then begins the long and intricate form filling out process that comes with buying $1.96 worth of vegetables at the store you work at. Sign here, here, here, here, initial here, thumb scan here, voice authorization here. Ugh. Then 20 minutes into this process, this person will turn to me and say, "Maybe you want to go to a different line, honey. This could take a while." So I stare at her for a while, like the Terminator trying to formulate an appropriate response, and finally deduce that, yes, I should probably take my 2 items elsewhere. So I go into a different line with more people but less bag ladies, and about 30 seconds later I look over and she is happily gone, back up into the bowels of the store someplace, unaware that I am plotting her untimely demise. Someday, revenge will be mine, lady who lives at the store, but for now I must go because some 15 year old just backed 47 carts into my bumper.