An Experience With Store Line Ups

I figure since I talked about people who disobey rules in stores in the last post I may as well tell the following story.

I'm not sure if it's terribly exciting but I'll try and embellish it as best as I could - which isn't encouraging.

Today was one of those "God I wish there was more time in a day but since there isn't maybe it's a good time to explore atheism" days. In between errands, we needed to go out and buy a cooler for a mini-trip to Lake George tomorrow.

So off we rushed to a famous store that begins with the letter 'W' and ends with the letter 'T.'By the time we were done it was 4:35 and the line up at the cashes were as long as my, erm, toenails.

The line we were in was a "do it yourself" section. But the way things were set up there were three lines for four cashes and there was a bottleneck forming. In other words, since I have no idea how to describe this, it basically resembled a third-world war area where people anxiously wait for bread.

Chaos in a store as well-organized as Wal-Mart is unacceptable. Of course, I went off on a tangent complaining that management is a joke for allowing this. What does it take to set up a proper line?

Anyway, it was so confusing I asked some real nasty looking dude if his line was for cash #5 and #6. The other two were #3 and #4 so I was trying to figure out if one line was going to four cashes; which made little sense. There should be two at the very least.

His answer wasn't very helpful and I could tell his personality matched his scruffy look. Sometimes big tough guys are teddy bears. Not this guy.

Then my gal observed there were too many filled carriages that went beyond the "8 articles or less" requirement. She innocently (and trust me, Jen is one sensitive chick. She's all about empathy, compassion, smiling and all that crap. It helps since she's in the education field) asked a worker if the line was indeed for eight articles or less. The worker responded in the affirmative and asked people -including the mean dude - to move on to the proper cashes.

I could hear his girlfriend or wife bitch that it's not fair since people with more than eight items have already gone through. Of course, this doesn't make it right. No one should have been there to begin with.

After we brought some order to the lines we somehow ended first but we knew we weren't. Jen remembered who were ahead of us and directed them until the line was in its "fair" state.

To make things more fun, the man in front of us realized that he didn't know how to pass the items because he thought he was going to a live cashier. So Jen stood and helped him through. He was grateful.

As Jen was taking control of things I stood back to hold our place. But one lady tried to slyly take advantage of the chaos we were trying to bring order to by slipping past us all. I yelled out as the murmurs of angry and anxious people behind me began to rise, "Madame, la file commence ici." She reluctantly came to her senses.

When it was our turn, Jen noticed the people we inadvertently got banished were still in line and clearly upset. I told her to pay fast and to get the hell out. He didn't rub me the right way.

While she did so, I had a chat with the cashier who oversees the section. I told her they should consider reconfiguring how they organize the lines. She smiled and said in French, "I'm surprised there weren't any fights yet. Normally by now people are at each other throats."

In other words, this was a typical occurrence! I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

To think that management get paid big bucks to not fix the simplest of problems. It took two 30-somethings (one very immature) addicted to cartoons to set the place in order.

Joke indeed.