So that they have to pack up their stuff from the conveyer belt and put it back in their basket or cart, I have to move out of the way, and they have to get huffy? Faster just to check out their 20 items or whatever.
Actually they should just seperate it by carry method. 1 lane for “In your Hands” for the people only stopping for butter or salad dressing or one or two things. 3 lanes for “In baskets” for people buying dinner or a bunch of small things at once, and the rest of the lanes for “Weirdos buying $800 worth of stuff who are going to use coupons, write checks and other old people stuff.”
Anyone with two carts has to use the customer service desk and pay a 10% penalty for doing so.
Unfortunately, by the time the checker is in a position to see how many items a customer has, refusing to serve them would usually mean having them put everything back in their cart, and then backing up to go to another lane, causing everyone behind them to back up, too. It probably wouldn’t save any time, in the long run.
I was an unwitting Express Lane Offender just yesterday. I was finished doing my weekly grocery shopping at my newly remodeled Kroger. I checked out each lane, deliberately avoiding the Express Lane next to the UScan area. I found the one with the shortest line and started unloading my items. A gentleman behind me comes up and says, “Isn’t this the Express Lane?”
I looked at him questioningly and looked up to where he was pointing. Sure enough, there was a huge “Express Lane” sign above me.
I apologized and offered to let him in front of me. He said it was okay and huffed off.
I felt terrible, but in my defense:
a) I honestly didn’t see the sign because I was focused on finding the shortest line.
b) Express Lanes belong on the ENDS. They certainly were BEFORE the stupid remodel.
c) On a matter of principle, not sure why I, a consumer who spent $125, should be made to wait longer than the due who spent $10.
d) When I have a few items, I always use the UScan.
I 'fessed up to the cashier that I’d gotten in the wrong lane. She just laughed and said that everyone does it.
I hate it when the store is almost empty and I am invited to the fast checkout lane with my full basket of items only to have 50 people with one item rush the check-out area and stand in line behind me shooting daggers with their eyes.
And when she scanned your club card she secretly keyed in a code to make sure the items you always buy either never go on sale again or are all sticky because a few of them broke in transit. Bwaaahahahahaha!
I like this idea. As I have always shopped for one to three days at a time, I do not understand people who can fill a cart. Are there that many expeditions? I certainly do not ever want to wait behind one of those.
But if more people are jerks, maybe a stigma would form around the practice and all would be well in the world. So go ahead, be an asshole, save the world.
Expeditions? Well, I shop for a family of four and an in-home daycare for toddlers (my Goldfish purchases alone are a tax deduction!), and I do it about three times a month, so yeah, I’m that tired looking woman with the cart overflowing with stuff. I supplement that with smaller shopping trips for fresh produce, but the way my Mama raised me was to buy stuff on sale and stock my own pantry, instead of paying $1.35 for a can of diced tomatoes the day I get the hankerin’ to make chili.
I don’t try to bring it into the Express Lane though, I promise!
Occasionally I’ll be standing in a regular line with my cart full of groceries when the clerk in the empty express lane calls me over. Great! Except for that awful feeling that some 10-item count-out-loud loudmouth will show up just as soon as my cart is half empty.
I checked the rules, and they say that you’re allowed in that case to respond with “Hey pal, *they * asked *me * to come over here.” If that does not work, the rules say you can hit them with one produce item in your posession.
Unless it’s egregious (like someone with a cart strolling up to the express lane), I can’t be arsed to count someone else’s groceries. Really, how different is 15 items from 10?
I’m sorry, produce item as defined in the rules says “one each of any fruit or vegitable, not frozen or canned.” Still, if you had one potato in a plastic bag and swung hard…
The trick is to be a jerk with a great deal of charisma, where people are charmed and entertained by your pointing out their checkout misbehavior. You are relieved, they are enlightened, and observers get a free show.
Heh, I just remembered that my local Lucky supermarket got rid of their express lanes. Now it’s only regular lanes and self-checkouts, of which they now have six, including two with conveyor belts.
See, I look at three identical items as one, because it is scanned once and then quantitized (I wonder if that will become a real word!) like anything else. Once scan, press qty 3, and so on.
I glance around to see if anyone is in the vicinity with just an item or two. If there’s no one around, i go for the short line. I try to stay at no more than five items more than the limit and I always ask permission from both the checker and folks around me. I also give express butts in line if someone has like two items and I have 8. It all works out in the end. Most people don’t mind if others go over the limit by a few.
