Friday Food Shopping

I fully admit that I enjoy grocery shopping. I really do. I can even go wander around the grocery store when I don't need to buy anything.

I guess I kind of like the possibility of all the stuff that's there. Kind of like getting travel catalogs in the mail just so that I can look at all the places to go. (Yes, I still like getting physical catalogs. But that shouldn't surprise most of you.)

The one thing that has always bugged me, though, about grocery shopping is the check-out. There never seem to be enough open registers, and the Express Lane always seems to be on a break. So you can imagine how happy I was a few years ago when they started having self-check-out in the grocery stores.

I started using those when I lived in Baltimore, and I loved them. No waiting in line for someone who might be having a bad day and decide to read every package before scanning it. No standing behind the person who wants to chat. Just walk up, scan my stuff, and leave.

They rolled out self-check-out lanes in the Twin Cities two or three years ago. And I was one of the first people always in those lines. When no one else was using them, I was there - always being offered help by someone, and never needing it. Quick, easy, done.

Then there are times like tonight. I was in my local Cub store (one of two which are "local" to me, but the more blue-collar of the two), and there was a line for the self-check-out. Well, it started out as a line, but then some people decided to line up behind specific registers. So there were kind of two-point-five lines. And no one seemed to know how to use the lanes.

One woman was trying to scan things but wasn't putting them on the scale-thing, so it wouldn't let her ring anything else (I suspect the two screaming kids with her may have played into that). Another woman walked past the "20 items or less" sign with a cart that was full to the top and started scanning and chatting with the "monitor" - who said nothing about the item limit. The guy behind me was on a blue-tooth cellphone call the entire time - by the time we were done I knew exactly where he kept his files in his office, because he'd been explaining how to get them to the person on the other end of the phone.

I walked into the store for three things. I walked in in a great "it's the end of the workweek" mood. I walked around and picked everything up within about 3 minutes, and then stood in line for about 10 listening to screaming kids and the loud cellphone guy. I probably could have gone through a "regular" line in that time - and I wouldn't have ended up walking out frustrated.

I suspect there's a life metaphor in there, somewhere, about potential versus reality - but we might have to wait until the clean-up on aisle seven is done, to find out.