# I've decided I'm going to start taking a full grocery cart to the express lane **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 14, 2014, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704 "2014-03-14T17:28:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/41 "2014-03-15T15:20:52Z")
> [@ExTank](#): > > I feel for ya. Just the other day I was heading to the checkout with a full cart. The regular lanes had people in them, but the express was open. I walked past and the express lane cashier waved me in. I said I had too much for the express, but she said come on ahead. > > So I’m getting a full cart scanned-and-bagged in the express lane when someone else comes up with 2 items in their hands and gives me very dirty looks. > > That wasn’t you by any chance? 😃 Ha, not me but I did have a similar thing happen once. I had a full cart and the regular checkout lines were backed up, and all of the self-checkouts were open, so the girl monitoring the self-checkouts waved me down and started helping me check out my full cart at the self-checkout. Well naturally, as soon as we start, then the self checkouts start filling up and then people are giving me nasty looks because I’m checking out a full cart and holding everyone up. Maybe I should just start sending my wife to do the grocery shopping. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![GESancMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gesancman/32/2923_2.png) [@GESancMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GESancMan)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/42 "2014-03-15T15:54:48Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > What supermarkets need most of all is a separate lane (or several) for shoppers with WIC coupons! Those take horribly long for the cashiers to deal with, and WIC shoppers commonly have a while handful of them! Can we extend this idea to convenience stores and lottery tickets? It infuriates me when I go into 7-11 to by a Super Big Gulp, and have to wait in line for ten minutes while several people are buying their lottery tickets. They should have their own damn line so the rest of us can get in and out. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/43 "2014-03-15T16:05:25Z")
> [@GESancMan](#): > > Can we extend this idea to convenience stores and lottery tickets? It infuriates me when I go into 7-11 to by a Super Big Gulp, and have to wait in line for ten minutes while several people are buying their lottery tickets. They should have their own damn line so the rest of us can get in and out. The guys in the liquor store are always larger than I, it would not be safe to quote someone on the Dope, “A lottery is a tx on people who are not good at math.” ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/44 "2014-03-15T17:48:39Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Yeah, I like people, so that doesn’t work for me. And half the time I’m picking up beer or alcohol, so that’s going to require somebody to come down and “approve” me, anyway. Plus a quarter of the time I feel like I’m arguing with the machine when it claims “unexpected item in baggage area!” when I just friggin put what I scanned in the baggage area. It’s just so much less stressful and much, much quicker for me to deal with a real cashier. I mean, I seriously _hate_ those self-checkouts, but I almost have no choice in most places these days. Theoretically, I like the do-it-yourself appraoch—but yeah, in my experience those self-checkouts just have too many ways of turning out to be more of a hassle than they’re worth. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/45 "2014-03-15T23:01:41Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Theoretically, I like the do-it-yourself appraoch—but yeah, in my experience those self-checkouts just have too many ways of turning out to be more of a hassle than they’re worth. If something won’t scan, I lay it aside. The gizmos are supposed to be quick, not a pain in the ass. One thinks that they would figure it out, but a bottle of spaghetti sauce w/o the back label was back on the shelf the next day. Come to think of it, I shouldn’t have bought something without some of the labeling. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/46 "2014-03-15T23:11:41Z")
The self-checkout lanes (6) at my Wal-Mart won’t accept any of my cash (Where’s George stamps, you know). So I have to use people-manned checkouts. The lines are long? Find one of the clerks standing around and tell them to open another checkout lane. It’s amazing what a little yelling can do. Since I was the instigator of this action, I get to go to the head of the line. Wanna make something out of it? I don’t carry this beefy cane for support, you young whippersnapper! Unlike Rodney Dangerfield, I get a lot of respect at WalMart now. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/47 "2014-03-16T00:15:04Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > I’m old enough to remember when cashiers had to key in every price since there was no scanner. They also knew how to count back change. The carryout would then bag the groceries, take them to the car, and put them in the trunk. No carts were left in the lot because the carryouts took them back inside. All this new-fangled stuff just deletes jobs. Are you 106 years old? Do honestly believe that supermarkets don’t have cart wranglers anymore? And that old-timey cashiers didn’t just give back whatever change the non-computerized cash register told them to? Seriously, who holds these opinions anymore? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/48 "2014-03-16T01:57:48Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > Are you 106 years old? Do honestly believe that supermarkets don’t have cart wranglers anymore? And that old-timey cashiers didn’t just give back whatever change the non-computerized cash register told them to? > > Seriously, who holds these opinions anymore? It depends upon where you live, I guess. Some kids do have trouble calculating change on their own. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/49 "2014-03-16T03:43:55Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > It depends upon where you live, I guess. > Some kids do have trouble calculating change on their own. No one has needed to “calculate” change for 40 years. This complaint has to stop. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/50 "2014-03-16T05:32:30Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > If I’m in an express checkout line and the person ahead of me has more than the number of items, I count them very loudly and state “It’s been said that 10% of people don’t know how to read or count. And they’re all in the express line.” I then turn to the person behind me and ask their opinion on it. And then that person looks away and pretends not to hear the crazy woman talking to them. ---
**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/51 "2014-03-16T08:32:44Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > Surely you are making this up. In my many decades of grocery shopping I have never seen anyone jump the queue at all, let alone by showing a number of items. Do you shop in some weird place like Vaucluse or Toorak. Nope. Not making it up and I don’t think they’d let me within cooee of Vaucluse or Toorak. My experience today (unrelated to the above complaint) pissed me off no end. I got into what looked the best queue. The first person had a fair few groceries but the next in line (just ahead of me) had only one item in each hand. Win!! Until her other half turned up with a full trolley and just blithely put it in front of me. It should be against the law to mind someone’s place in the queue. Selfish bastards. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/52 "2014-03-16T12:42:40Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > No one has needed to “calculate” change for 40 years. This complaint has to stop. Thanks for setting us straight. [Old Roll Eyes] ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/53 "2014-03-16T14:04:33Z")
When I said “count back change”, I meant that he/she would say this sort of thing which kept him/her from having to subtract when giving back change: Total, $3.76, paid with a ten dollar bill Cashier: That’s $376 out of ten, so 77, 78, 79, 80, 90, four, five, and five is ten. Not really "calculating’, just counting back the change. Many cash registers back then only gave the total. When counting back the change, one great thing that happened was that the coins went in the customer’s hand FIRST, and not\* awkwardly piled on top of the bills\*! I hate it when they try to pile the coins on the bills!!! (Yes, I have been a cashier, and NO, I didn’t pile the coins on the bills.) ---
**Author:** ![Athabasca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Athabasca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athabasca)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/54 "2014-03-16T15:12:45Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > I hate regular self checkout, but my local Tesco has recently introduced these little handheld scanners that you take round the store with you. They are great. You scan items and bag them at your leisure as you go round the shop, instead of having to do it all at once at the end, in a panic, with people behind you in line getting mad. (Here in Britain we don’t have baggers, even on manned checkouts. You have to do it yourself, though you might get a little bit of help from the cashier if you are lucky.) Then at the end it downloads all your data wirelessly into the checkout machine. I LOVE that. I wish it would catch on in Canada. ---
**Author:** ![Athabasca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Athabasca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athabasca)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/55 "2014-03-16T15:17:52Z")
> [@expectopatronum](#): > > even though you qualified with “not always true”, i’m REALLY tired of seeing this meme in grocery threads. i’m female, usually have less than 10 items, i don’t bother with coupons, and i have my card swiped and ready to process by the time my groceries are bagged. (rarely do i run into the mythical problems with the card reader that the cash-only types always seem to encounter) and i know i’m not alone in that. please, enough of this nonsense. I second that, expectopatronum. In fact, I’ve seen plenty of instances where men are either chatting up,the female checkers, or the male ones, and vice versa. Women do the same, but honestly, it goes both ways. And I resent the chatty checkers when they keep me waiting, or the lineup behind me. I feel their frustration. ---
**Author:** ![Athabasca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Athabasca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athabasca)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/56 "2014-03-16T15:31:51Z")
One of the checkers at my local Safeway is horribly disorganized. She forgets what she has scanned, and if you interrupt her flow (like asking for cigarettes or bus tix, which she then has to fetch from another part of the store) she will add that amount to the bill, get the item, but then promptly forget she has added the item, and then reel back the tape to check. It’s a real drag being in her line, and I’ve done it exactly twice, but no more. The second and last time, she got me my bus tix, added them to the bill, and gave them to me, but as I was leaving she stopped me and told me to give back the receipt. She needed to check whether she had actually charged me for the bus tickets. I vowed to never go back in her line again. I occasionally see her getting flustered with other customers and I feel their pain but I won’t go through that again. ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/57 "2014-03-16T15:59:26Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > If I’m in an express checkout line and the person ahead of me has more than the number of items, I count them very loudly and state “It’s been said that 10% of people don’t know how to read or count. And they’re all in the express line.” I then turn to the person behind me and ask their opinion on it. > > I’ve had some fine conversations on the subject. If the person ahead of me says anthing, I said in a very haughty voice “I wasn’t talking to you.” You seem to have lots of stories of throwing tantrums in public (shoving peoples bags off of bus seats if you wants to sit down, reading their cell phone texts if they’re annoying you, smacking them with your cast, etc). And of course, there’s the big-ass fit you threw that landed you in the psychiatric ward. ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/58 "2014-03-16T17:16:53Z")
I may be getting mellower and more tolerant in my dotage so small shit doesn’t bother me as much as it used to, but why exactly is this such a problem, again? So someone causes you to be slowed down in your terribly important life by three, five, maybe even ten minutes. So? I mean, I get irritated too, but really, what exceptionally important tasks am I rushing off to after buying groceries? Rushing home to post about the ineptitude of the great unwashed? 😃 I chat with people around me, catch up on my tabloid reading, fool with my device, ponder the ingredients list in Altoids or Snickers bars, and remind myself that no doubt there’ve been many a time when shit happened and I myself inconvenienced some random person. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/59 "2014-03-16T17:37:49Z")
Self checkout is all I’ve done for years. It’s fast, especially if you’ve memorized the numbers for produce you buy frequently. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704/60 "2014-03-16T18:19:19Z")
> [@chiroptera](#): > > I mean, I get irritated too, but really, what exceptionally important tasks am I rushing off to after buying groceries? Rushing home to post about the ineptitude of the great unwashed? 😃 Getting back to work. I’d rather not spend minutes spend my lunch hour listening to the checkers chat. :dubious: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-decided-im-going-to-start-taking-a-full-grocery-cart-to-the-express-lane/683704.md?page=4)