Man-Lining At The Devil's Playground

Today we take a break from product reviews, and review the people buying the product.

Monday, I went to The Devil's Playground over in Bill-Paying Town. I didn't have a cart full of items. Just specific things I went after. I don't browse there, because I don't know where things are. They have an odd way of grouping things. Not that I'm and expert, of course, but let's just say that bottled water should not have any reason for being found on four different aisles.

Anyhoo...I pushed my cart/walker up front, and was pleased to see that the first line only had ONE cart in it! The regular first line. Not the self-check. There's no line at all there, because people don't want to do all the work themselves when there are checkers paid to stand there and watch them. That's pretty backwards if you ask me. YOU'RE the one getting the money. So YOU should be doing the work. I'm funny like that. Funny peculiar. Not funny ha-ha. It's no laughing matter to do the work for free while somebody else gets paid for it.

So...I wheeled my cart/walker into that first line, quite pleased with myself, being so close to the exit door, and only having one customer to wait on. Two, actually, but they were an elderly couple. None of this foolish separate orders business, where they slap that divider between their stuff, and then force me to endure two transactions. They WERE elderly, though, which means they like to chat. And they move kind of slow. So I took out my phone to send myself some pictures, because I had a good signal in there, and my phone has been working right lately.

No sooner had I opened up a picture and typed in Hillbilly Mom as the destination than I felt someone encroaching upon my space. I don't go for that. Go find a culture that doesn't mind you breathing down their neck. Actually, he couldn't quite reach my neck. He was a bent old man. Bent on saying, "Looks like there's no getting out."

What in the Not-Heaven is THAT supposed to mean? It's not like we were having an adventure, trying to escape from the Poseidon. I had no intention of swimming through a flooded passage so HE could get to the surface. If Mrs. HM goes down, we ALL go down.

I ignored him and kept looking at my phone. Not my job to entertain bored old geezers in The Devil's line. I thought maybe he was hinting that I should let him go ahead of me. I had a cart about 1/3 full, and he had ONE ITEM. Too bad, so sad. He was nowhere around when I got in line. You can't just walk up at your leisure and expect somebody to let you cut. It would be different if we were headed there at the same time. Besides, he had ONE ITEM. He could have easily utilized the self-check, and been out of there pretty quick. If only there had been getting out. Which he said there wasn't.

"Hey! It's been a long time!"

Sweet Gummi Mary! Old Geezer had to chat up the Elderlies in front of me, distracting them from their business of heaving a 108-pack of bottled water onto the conveyor, using all four of their withered arms. AND they had to talk to Old Geezer! They even walked back, leaving the checker idle, waiting for their payment. Which of course they were going to write a check for, even though they hadn't taken it out of Mrs. Elderlies' purse yet.

I learned more about stiff knees and gardening than I will ever want to know. And about assorted surgeries endured by Old Geezer, and his recoveries. While this joyous reunion was going on, I fished out that rubber divider and put my stuff on the conveyor. Old Geezer was all the way up in front of me now, glad-handing with the Elderlies. Somebody else, with a cart, got in line behind me.

The Elderlies wrapped up the reunion tour, produced the checkbook, and FOUND A WAY OUT! Old Geezer came to get back in line, but a cart was there now, at my rumpus. So he stood beside me. I moved up and pointed to two four-packs of strawberry water hung over the side of my cart. "I've got them turned so you can scan them." No need to pick them up when you don't need to.

While I was lifting bags into my cart/walker as the checker filled them, Old Geezer was HAVING A CONVERSATION WITH MY CHECKER! That's not right. I certainly don't enjoy making small talk with my checker, but I'll be darned if I'm going to let her pay attention to somebody else! They went on and on, about gardens, and family. She was young enough to be his granddaughter, and it didn't seem like she even knew him. While chatting away, she grabbed his one item, a six-pack of bottled cranberry juice, to run over the scanner.

"THAT'S NOT MINE!" No way was I paying for Old Geezer's home kidney-infection treatment.

"WAIT! THAT'S MINE!"

Pretty bold of Old Geezer to carry on like that, when HE was the one who HAD MOVED THE DIVIDER BEHIND HIS JUICE. I guess he was acting like he was with me, so the folks behind him would not object to him cutting back in line ahead of them.

In all that commotion, the checker forgot to scan my two four-packs of water. I told her, though. No good comes of giving Even Steven a reason to even you.

The weirdos have really honed in on my magnet. They can now find me three towns over.