wednesday february 25

today i had to pick up a few groceries, but took a while to get myself over to no frills, and eventually arrived there at 8:45 pm, 15 minutes before the store was scheduled to close. quick to grab the handful of things i needed, i headed to the checkout a few minutes later. although the lack of lines at the checkout was nice, i soon discovered that apparently the people who do their shopping just before the grocery store closes are the type of people who think they run the place.

approaching the so-called "express" line, which was empty, i noticed a couple piles of groceries sitting there, and was told by the cashier that two separate customers had gone off looking for "one more thing." she had already started ringing one of them up, so i had to stand there waiting for these people to come back. finally, as the cashier was about to cancel the previous transaction to accommodate me, a middle-aged woman came leisurely walking over with her "one more thing" (a big of potatoes), not acknowledging the fact that she'd been holding things up.

after the cashier rang her through, we both looked around for the other woman, and spotted her literally at the very other end of the store, in the furthest possible aisle from us, on her cell phone and still walking in the wrong direction. fortunately, with no in-progress transaction to contend with this time, i was able to jump her in line. still, as i handed each of my items one by one to the cashier, who couldn't reach them over this other lady's groceries, i was pretty disgusted all the same.