Can you tell the same thing to some of the folks at church? I know my parents took turns going to Mass when we were too tiny to sit still. It’s nice to want to go to church together, but wait until the kids can handle it.
Or if one of you does stay home with the kids, how about if the one at the store is also the one with the shoping list, instead of on the cell phone, drawing a mental picture of the choices on display for ther person on the other end, oblivious to his or her fellow shoppers?
“I’m here in the vinegar aisle. Should I get raspberry balsamic or shamrock essence-infused? Well, if I get shamrock essence-infused, I’ll have to go back and get different bread and different lettuce.”
I’m pitting the Suwanee Georgia Krogers in particular, located in an affluent area of gated communities where nobody who works at Krogers could ever afford to live, so they have to take a public transportation system that’s typically kept shitty in such areas to keep criminals from availing themselves of it’s use. Which explains why there are never enough cashiers on duty, and the employees make no effert to hide thier contempt of the customers. Someday those shopping carts will be used as tumbrels, mark my words!
(When affluent people act like assholes in public, it comes off as pompous entitlement. When poor people do it, it comes off as “this world fucked me, so fuck you”)
Not to spoil your neo-Dickensian take on Kroger, but in fairness, Tove, in all the times I’ve visited grocery stores in… let’s say less-than-affluent areas… I’ve never felt any particular brotherly love radiating from their staff either.
In fact, the experience is pretty goddamned similar, except that the floors and parking lot are generally much filthier, and there is a much more tangible feeling that at any given moment I might be physically assaulted by a cracked-out fellow customer or disgruntled employee.
One of the few things I regularly buy at Wally World is their store-brand cat litter.
I can’t self-check this product out. The damn machines want it bagged though it’s not only already bagged, but the bag is boxed.
All I can do is add a hearty AMEN to the gripe about the lovely little ladies standing around giving out free samples. I wasn’t interested in whatever you’re trying to clear off the shelves before I got there and now that I’ve seen your meth-rotten green teeth, there’s no way in hell. Add to that that your table is blocking half the aisle and everyone that is there for the buffet is blocking the other half…
And to all you assbitches that are dissing my Miracle Whup.
Fuck you.
That was my conversational voice. I do not mumble or stutter.
Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me or that I wasn’t talking to you.
I especially luv it in the squeeze bottle where I can just add a healthy blort to my sammich without having to bother with a knife.
OK, right? I have a strict rule that except in case of dire emergency (like, it’s hamburger night and we’re out of ketchup), one (1) and ONLY one (1) child is permitted to go with me to the store. If Daddy has to work late several nights in a row, then we either start eating canned pork and beans for dinner, or I go to Kroger at 10:30 PM. The Whatsit progeny, while generally well-behaved, polite little creatures, are mysteriously transformed into shrieking hellbeasts when in groups of two or more at the grocery store.
Why in the name of all that is holy people actually CHOOSE to go to the grocery store en masse with all children in tow, along with a spouse that could presumably be home watching said children, is completely and unfathomably beyond me.
Miracle Whip and Fritos. Yum.
Maybe it’s their vacation? “Hey, Kids! Let’s all go the Safeway for Easter Break.”
:eek:
Backs away in horror
A lot of mine have been covered so I’ll just add one. I love the self-checkouts and go to them eslsewhere. Once in a while we go to the Super WalMart. Not my favorite place, but they are the only place around here that sells distilled water, which we use for the reptiles.
So I get up to the checkout, and I’ve got my water in my cart, and it’s a SUPER WalMart, right?
So the place to put all of your bagged groceries for the self-checkout is this itty bitty little square. WTF is up with that? How am I supposed to put anything on there? Plus I’ve seen your demographic, they are always apparently shopping for a herd of buffalo when they go there - 1 or even 2 carts chock full. What do they do?
Self Check-Out Fuckwits: If you have a cartload of groceries, go to a fucking cashier. The self check-out is not big enough to handle all of your shit. You are not a trained professional. The cashier can dispatch your goods a helluva lot faster than you can. The self check-out is for people who have only a couple of items who don’t want to wait in a check-out line behind people with a whole cartload of grub. Get the fuck out of my way. Run this mental checklist through your spastically firing neurons before you get in the self check-out line.
[ul]
[li]Do I have less than 10 items? No? - go to a cashier![/li][li]Do I have the mental capacity to use this technology? No? - go to a cashier![/li][li]Do I have produce items? Yes? Go to a cashier![/li][li]Do I have coupons? Yes? Go to a cashier![/li][li]Do I have a jar full of pennies with which to pay for my goods? Yes? - go to a fucking cashier you fuckstick. Use plastic to pay at the self check line. OK? Please?[/li][/ul]
On the other hand, at least when I go to the ghetto store there may be a legitimate reason for unhappy (poor) people. Rich snobs got no excuse. If the entitled bitches are so unhappy to be shopping, it’s their own fault for not hiring some illegal alien to do it for them. I’d rather shop quickly through a filthy store than be thwarted at every turn in an ‘affluent’ store by oblivious entitlement douches who are obviously the only person that matters in the world taking up the entire aisle and looking down their nose at me because I want to get past them and I’m wearing jeans and a t-shirt instead of gucci loafers and pastel-colored sweaters.
Y’all gotta remember that there’s 2 types of self checkout - one that’s a stand, a bag stand and a computer and the other kind that is a full complete checkout aisle with a conveyor belt and everything.
The stand-and-bag version is shit. Well, it’s shit unless you have just one item then it works ok. If you need more than 1 bag at this stand, you’re really fucked and you’re fucking everyone behind you.
The full aisle type is awesome. I can run through that with a half-full cart in no time and so can all of my shopping buddies. We’re like some sort of privileged bunch up in there.
My grocery store is awesome because it has the single stand type for the people in a big hurry, the full aisle type for those of us who are anti-social and the regular “have someone else do it” type, for old people.
Oh it’s also better to do one’s shopping after 9 PM. It’s much more laid back. I feel really bad for people who don’t have 24-hour grocery stores or who have to shop at normal hours 
The Dierbergs that is right on my way home does this all the damn time. All of their popular, high-volume items are always sold out – and their restock schedule is apparently based on the Aztec calendar, because it has no connection to their high-volume times like the Friday rush hour.
Furthermore, they know this. I’ve actually had this conversation with the Slack-Jawed Store Manager:
Lightray: :mad:
SJSM: “Can’t find what you’re looking for?”
Lightray: “No. You are out of Raisin Bran Crunch. Again.”
SJSM: “Oh, yes! That’s a very popular item!”
Lightray: “… And you never thought of increasing the amount that you stock? Since Dierbergs allows local stores to determine that sort of thing?”
SJSM: “Well, I suppose we could do that, couldn’t we?”
Lightray: “Good Lord, you’re thick.”
Slack-Jawed Store Manager just kind of stared at me with a fake smile pretending that I hadn’t said what he damn well knew that I’d said. And they still don’t stock up on Raisin Bran Crunch. Or any of their other high-demand items they’re always sold out of.
Also, may I say how much I dread the coming season when the annoying Salvation Army panhandlers are outside every store, annoying passersby. No, I give elsewhere, thanks. No, I don’t want to make chirpy smalltalk with you. No, I don’t want to make eye-contact, either. Stop ringing that damn bell. And it is absolutely of no use for you to activate the automatic door before I get there as if you were being polite and helpful – it’s an automatic door you 'tard, and now it’s just going to start closing while I’m still walking through.
Remember (for those old enough to remember) those pop machines where you put in your money then reached in and pulled out the bottle you wanted and only one bottle was released from the claws when you pulled?
I want a grocery set up like that. You get a card. You swipe the card and get one item. For multiple items, you multiply swipe. You put the item into your cart.
At the checkout, you return anything you decided against to the yokel behind the counter and swipe the card again. Then you pay for the groceries that were on your card and therefore in your cart.
No one will be able to abandon their cart in the middle of the aisle for then others might pilfer their Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
And in an ideal world, all transactions would be accompanied by TiVo noises. Baloop!
I’d like that. In Denver all the self checkouts were express; here they have no item limits. Having the option would be nice.
Wait…so most of you really do not shop at Trader Vics?!?
Only when I want one of those tropical drinks with a paper umbrella.
Or to meet a werewolf. 
Hey ass-biyatch behind me:
Yes I can see that you only have a couple of items and yes this is a full cart of food.
You can sigh and huff and puff all you like.
I won’t let you cut.
There are 3 express lines in this store. Go over there!
I love my local Safeway. The people who shop in it I’m not too thrilled with.
I am so going to grab some condoms to salt the carts of the morons who park it in the middle of the aisle, or sideways. I don’t want to cost them money, I want to make them embarrassed. Around here they are exactly the same people who drive 20 mph below the speed limit in the left lane.
The only think I don’t like about the store is when they run out of something and I have to go to Lucky’s. Home of the self checkouts that don’t quite work. Home of the policy that they open a new lane when there is a line of 3 - that is 3 at every checkout, which means 12 stacked up at the 4 self serves.
Now, the other day they actually opened a lane, and I was behind a woman with about 4 items. Paradise, no? No. The asshat who was there before never signed out, and it took them five minutes to log him out and log the new guy in.