Minor Annoyances

Yesterday, as I left the grocery store, I realized that once I got in the car, I was not breathing heavily and my heart was slowing down. Now, it's definitely not because I was lugging huge liter bottles of water (I was, but I'm used to that) or because I embarrassed myself by trying to use a - gasp!- debit card at the grocery store (been there, done that, and it's ugly. Involves having a worker push my cart to a 'secure location' while I run away to get cash and hordes of angry Germans staring at me). Nor was it because I couldn't find laundry detergent and bought bleach instead (of course I didn't realize that one 'til the wash came out and everything was a mysterious shade of grey-blue and/or pale peach). No, yesterday I realized that checkout at the grocery store (especially a big grocery store, not just a small market) is an extremely stressful activity. Once it's over, I let out a deep breath. Every time.

See, what happens first, if I'm shopping at a time when the store is crowded (and why wouldn't it be, with its limited opening hours, it's a wonder they have room in the aisles) is that as I get close to the checkout with my full (and almost always off-centered) cart, sort of leaning my body sideways to push the cart so it goes straight, is that there is a pushing, shoving, grocery-cart-ramming debacle to get in the line in the first place. I'm not sure, but I think it's left from DDR days when people couldn't buy anything in the shops and had to resort to physical violence in order to claim that last loaf of bread. I hope that's why, so I can at least understand why elderly ladies and men with mullets alike use their carts (which glide along smoothly while I'm using every muscle in my body to make mine go straight) to beat me to the checkout line.

Once in the line, I can rest a bit. I can save my energy for the next part- flying grocery syndrome. See, bag boys do not exist here. Are they phasing out in the US? If so, please campaign against it. It makes grocery shopping insanely stressful. So as the woman zips the goods over the scanner, she flings them to the end of the line where I am standing (with my bags brought from home and the empty cart) and I have to pack the items in. Now, I wasn't trained at Market Basket on how to pack things quickly and efficiently, and I'm often attempting to cram it all in to a few big bags because there's no way I'm going back in the store to by a bag, but I cannot keep up at the pace the checker is keeping. The result- she gives me the total (and I'm busily translating in my head and ensuring that I have the right amount of cash) and there is still a giant pile of groceries sitting on the end of the counter. Once I've paid, I have to race to get all the items into the bag, into the cart, and out the door before the next person's goods come flying at me. Inevitably the person behind me has one bottle of wine and a bag of chips, and I'm red-faced with the shame of buying so much (probably half of what I would have bought in the US) and now I'm two people behind. The checker sometimes sweeps my goods further down to create room for the customers behind me, which further humiliates.

What do other people do? Since I've identified this issue, I've been watching closely. I think that what they do is fling all the items willy-nilly into the cart, then go to the car and pack them into bags there. It seems like a reasonable idea- but why the extra step? And how possible is that with a screeching child who really really needs the brownies being sold at the bakery at the end of the checkout because she is HUNGRY, VERY HUNGRY (which of course is impossible because clearly, we buy so much food that I can't keep up the pace). And in the snow/rain/cold which is fast approaching?

As our oh-so-efficient (and former) computer tech used to say when I told him my computer was down, "I will observe." I will observe the behavior of other mums (although, they don't often bring kids to the grocery store, and I do get glares from people that cannot believe I would do such a thing) and people with slower reflexes (maybe I just need practice bagging?) to see what they do in these instances. I'll watch, as the weather gets cold, to see if the old dears are really standing in the whipping wind packing their cat food cans into the car one at a time. And definitely, when I'm at home at Christmas, I will observe the bag boys at Market Basket to pick up some tips.