Move it along, sister!

There are fewer things in life that fill me with more internal rage then people who make it difficult for those behind them in a checkout line. Which is such a silly thing to get annoyed at except that I do every single time. If you live in a society then you have to be a team player when it comes to things like checkout lines and merging onto the freeway. I try so hard to keep it inside though because I don't want to be one of those people who make a situation worse by my bad attitude. But there's a lot going on in my head. It goes something like this:

I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT AFTER WAITING IN LINE FOR AN ENTIRE ICE AGE AND SEEING HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE STANDING BEHIND YOU AND KNOWING EXACTLY HOW THE CHECK OUT PROCESS WORKS THAT YOU ARE ONLY JUST NOW PULLING OUT A STACK OF COUPONS AND DECIDING WHICH PAPER PRODUCTS YOU ARE GOING TO BE PURCHASING WITH THEM!!!! STOP TALKING TO THE CHECKER!!!!! AND WHY ISN'T YOUR WALLET OUT?!?! WHY HAVEN'T YOU SWIPED YOUR CARD?!?! YOU CAN SWIPE IT ANYTIME THROUGHOUT THE TRANSACTION!!!!!  YOU ARE RUINING ALL OF OUR LIIIIIIVVVVVEEEEESSSSSS!!!!!!!!!

This is the exact scene that played out yesterday at Target, where I swear it must have been Free Everything Day because I have never in my life seen so many people there. And I am at Target a lot. We all had to wait two lifetimes to get through the check out. And yet the woman at the head of my line decided that that very moment was the one that she was going to become the coupon queen. After everything had been scanned. With, I'm not kidding you, 9 people behind her. 

So ten minutes later when, after changing her mind on buying that 50 pack of paper plates no fewer than three times and the checker had finally totaled everything up and she swiped her card, she said, "Ooh, I wanted gum," and she reached for it, I said just slightly under my breath, "Are we in a jokeland right now?" and the lady between us gave her a look that said, "You better pray I don't follow you out into the parking lot," and the people behind us looked like they were about to pull clubs and brass knuckles out of their coat pockets. She stopped mid-reach, grabbed her bags, and left.

This was a small victory for the common man.

I recounted this experience to Katie later that night and said that instead of an express lane they should have a complicated lane for people who are going to take forever. But then she correctly said that those people who would need it never have a clue that they do.