Ten Items or Less

It was a cold, rainy day today.  Nonetheless, I had to carry on my activities as usual, which included a schlep to the library for an arts and crafts class and a trip to Kohls and WalMart.  Despite the miserable weather, the girls and I made it through the first half of our outing without getting soaked to the bone and everything went smoothly.  Until we tried to check out at WalMart. 

To be honest, I usually try to avoid a trip to Wally World because it's always packed, there's never any parking and the customers get rude and vicious when it's time for rollbacks.  But if I know I can't get what I'm getting at a better price anywhere else, I suck it up and head to the home of the yellow bouncing smiley face.

Anyway, so I'm standing there with my three items in the "express" line.  There is a lady in front of me with her son/boyfriend/don'tknowdon'tcare in one of those motorized sit-down shopping carts. They are about 6 feet from the register, and she is busy staring at a wall of Entenmann's baked goods, so I politely ask, "Are you guys in line?"

"Yeah, we're in line!" she says, as if she was already putting her stuff on the belt when I asked her.  Then I look more closely and notice that she has, not 10 (remember, we're in the "express" line), not 20, but like, 30 items in the cart.  And half of them were Entenmann's boxes.  The guy ahead of them was just finishing up and she was still 5 feet from the register, oblivious to the fact that the guy was already half way out of the store and it was now her turn because she was too busy reading the nutrition information on the side of a box of powdered doughnuts.  Like it really mattered what the hell was in them, because she already had a whole cart full of them in the 10 items or less lane.  Not that I'm a stickler, but you have to draw the line somewhere, and my line is definitely drawn after 30.  I had THREE things, for goodness sake.

By now my kids are getting restless and Mia is trying to wriggle her way out of the cart. Then out of nowhere, a lady comes down the line, passes me and Mr. and Mrs. Entenmann and goes straight to the register.  I look at her like "what the hell are you doing?" and she makes a gesture that indicates that she was up there earlier and had to go get something.  Well, it turns out that something was a check.  A friggin check.  In the damn express lane.  I mean, really?  And of course, now the cashier has to wait for a manager to come sign for the check, and of course there is no manager in sight.

Now Mia is trying to open the bag of candy corn in my cart and I am at my wit's end.  Thirty-item lady is done taking inventory of the Entenmann's wall and is now trying to talk to Mia.  Mia is ignoring her.  I laugh inside.

Finally I decide to just go to another line instead of waiting for Manager Molasses to appear at Register 2.  I get stuck behind a man with a full month's worth of groceries and WalMart's entire stock of vitamin water, and I still made it out before the couple with the motorized shopping cart.  Sometimes it's the little things that make my day.