What Don't You Understand About 12 Items Or Less?

I consider myself to be a pretty calm individual. To me getting angry about the things that happen in everyday life is a waste of my mental energy. That said there is something so stupid and petty that I cannot get over, people who don't know how to use the automatic checkout at the grocery store.

I'm a staight up bachelor, so I never buy more than 20 dollars worth of food at a time. I know this sounds strange, but I'm also really cheap when it comes to buying food. I've figured out that if you don't buy junk food and you pay attention to your weekly circulars and use a cupon here and there, you can feed yourself for a week on between 15 to 20 dollars and that includes beer. That said when I go to the grocery store I want to get in and get out, so I use the self check out lines that do not require me to even deal with a check out person. This should usually saves time, but every once and a while it winds up extending my stay at the store because these lines are like rest havens for the mentaly challenged. Below is a list of people who need to stick with traditional check out and perhaps wear helmets in public as not to incur any more brain inuries.

THE NON-READER: The directions in the self check out are not hard to follow if you can read, but if you want to see exactly where the public school system has failed a segment of America. You need to look no further than your local grocery store. What is really sad is that most of these terminals talk in both english and spanish. So most people who can't read also are unable to listen.

THE CHECK WRITTER: It is 2010, why are still writting checks for anything other than your rent, mortgage, or car payment? I'm sure there is a list of things people still write checks for but 17 dollars worth of candy and potato chips should not be on that list.

THE COMPUTER ILLITERATE: If you have never logged on to the internet or played minesweeper on a computer stay out of this line!!! I don't like discrimination of any kind, but when I see an old person in this line I know they are going to add an extra 5 minutes to my day. The worst is when one of these people have to figure out what to do when buying produce because that involves extra keystrokes and even more reading & concentration.

THE ASSHOLE: This is the person who knows how to use the self check out, but does not care that this line is usually for people with 12 items or less. There is a reason why the scales only hold so much. The worst thing about this is when somebody comes into the 12 items or less line with 150 dollars worth of groceries, nobody who works at the grocery store will tell the person to get the hell out of line, so I have to risk getting into it with some mouth breather when all I wanted was some ground turkey and 24 Oz cans of Bud Select.