I was on my way to Fairway Market yesterday when I knew I had no chance of escape: There she was, The Express Lane Dilemma. The offending line was courteously offering up its services with a sign that proudly declared, “15 ITEMS OR FEWER.” While leisurely waiting there with my single carton of milk, the person in front of me began unloading an entire supermarket’s worth of goods for what I could only imagine was the Zombie Apocalypse edition of Walmart. Oddly enough, counting to ten helps me avoid completely losing my shit, and that’s what I started to do… 1 frozen lasagna.
Two, three…eggs.
Four through nine… bottled water. By the time I hit thirty-three rolls of toilet paper, I’d experienced a full-body twitch that I had to snap myself out of.
This doesn’t just happen to me though, does it? I think we can all agree that it’s acceptable societal behavior to let our fellow shoppers know that they’re taking too damn long by cutting in front of them. Humanity has created express checkout lines so we can silently judge each other for being slow.
Put kindly, the express checkout lane has become the fabric that holds society together. Without it, I fear we may crumble. Breaking down the concept into easy-to-comprehend metaphors such as what I’ve done here allows us to see, at its simplest terms, that mathematically five people with two items each will get through line quicker than one person with fifteen.
She moved at a pace that let me know she probably did not know nor understand that concept of time. Speeding thru the line: These people are fascinating. Individuals that shamelessly disregard the “Express Lane Only” signs are infinitely complex beings.
Not only do they challenge the stereotype that we all know and love, they exhibit depths of character that allow us to file them away into categories. “The oblivious” for example…
is comprised of individuals who’ll tally up their items in under ten items without realizing that by failing to notice that they’ve now exceeded ten items, they’ve automatically disqualified themselves from the teenagers-on-phys-ed-day division of society. (I almost feel bad for these people.)
Then we have “The Entitled.”
Individuals who see a sign and know that yes, verily there are rules up in this mother but…” I am better than those rules.” Okay, so obviously those people have an explanation for their behavior as well (Some even wear their lack of empathy like a badge of honor when they take the parking spot for handicapped patients.) Then you have “The Jerks.” Wait, what Jerks? The worst of the worst are ‘The Rationalizers’ folks who lie to themselves (and everyone within earshot) to make leeways for completely unacceptable behavior.
‘Oh these five boxes of yogurt fit together so they technically count as one.’ Or: ‘The sign said fifteen items “or fewer.” They didn’t say SMALLer items! Those brownies are massive so my entire grocery haul counts as one item.”
…is person who proceeded to cut in front of me after I spoke to him. This guy made me lose my temper.
I’ve spent so much time internalizing my anger towards everyone who abuses the express lane that the moment I actually let rip, someone had to ruin it for me. I shouldn’t have spoken up, I realized. My carefully crafted plan to annoy him into submission was working until he just yelled RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.
Someone explain to me how someone goes through life WITHOUT understanding that the Express Lane is NOT for them. Breaking my own rule, I watched. The man bagged his groceries at a leisurely pace, completely unfazed by the man and woman staring him down like he was a piece of banameatl.
By the time he was done, I couldn’t take it anymore. “ Hey!” I calmly said. “ Um excuse me…” I began, modulating my voice to what I thought was middle ground.
“ This is the express lane. Fifteen items or less.”
Let me tell you about when someone ignores that you just talked to them. It’s as empowering as telling someone who ordered the cocktail they can’t get off the menu.
I wanted to scold him. To chastise him for his ways. To tell him that his fourteen items were nothing compared to the twenty-seven mine and the elderly woman behind me had.
But as I stood there trying to muster up the courage to breach him with my rage, I realized that all of my items were pretty small anyway. Some were evenExpress” worthy. This wasn’t just because of the law of diminishing returns wherein something is smaller, the price is inevitably cheaper too (Though let’s be honest checkout folks should not “express” themselves when greeting you at the register.)
My groceries were small because I was in the “Express” lane. Those who were in a rush. You could not rush me if our weight was listed on the front of our bodies.
The cashier nodded at me so weakly, you would’ve thought he was Marco Poloing me from across the river that was his social anxiety towards confrontations like this. He said nothing. I’m sure she gets paid squat to work there compared to how much us thrill-seekers at get paid entertaining others by portraying jurors on COURT TV.
The worst part about people taking up the express lane isn’t that they’re stealing your time…
It’s that they don’t give a shit. Not about you. Not about the store.
They don’t care about themselves enough to police their own grocery habits to ensure they’re not impeding anyone else’s shopping experience. When enough people don’t care about something that should be basic common courtesy, everything goes to hell. So there I stood looking at a cashier who refused to help me address someone blatantly flouting store policy.
Someone who was FUCKING RIPPING OFF THE STORE and all I could think was…manners. People need to have more manners. When you cut in front of the person in line at Starbucks, there’s an unspoken understanding that your latte will taste significantly worse than theirs.
When you roll up to the “Express Lane” with sixtyitems, you are telling me that your time is more important than mine. You are telling me that you know the rules but choose to not follow them. AND Friendos, I DON’T THINK SO.
I’ve abandoned my own queue to move down to another line before I because I knew that waiting behind a pro-violator was never going to end. I would rather be in a slow-moving line than deal with aspeeder.” It’s a principle thing. Life is full of principals.
Cheaters smell. Watching someone cheat and get away with it sucks. TheExpress” lane is for shopping carts with 10 items or less.
Period. If your cart is pushing 20, you’re NOT getting away with foolin around in my lane. Fun fact: I spend more time every single week thinking about these offenders than I do actually waiting in the express lanes.
Probably. But that’s the beauty of letting our society dwindle into a state of frustration. Sure, the act itself is trivial but when you really think about all of the ways that people are skipping the rules these days…
The smallest injustices feel like it’s our turn to stand up and scream
about something. Someone with 15+ items coming up behind me. I pride myself on my subtle gestures.
MySTSAAAARE” eye contact. Myexasperated sighsthrough clenched teeth while I mentally calculate how much time they’ve stolen from me and my family. As I was approaching the express lanes today, I scoped out the individuals behind and in front of my cart.
Some people havekids.” Others are younger and not paying attention. If either of those cars begin to approach my queue with more than 15 items, onlookers will know that I SHOPPED ELSEWHERE. I study the lanes like it’s my job.
Someone’s got to train these kids, right? Me. Every time I approach the express lanes I analyze them as if I were a swimming coach watching tapes of my athletes before the Olympics.
Sure, I might get mad and lose my cool. But hell if I’m not at least trying. Except when I got up to the front of my line and there was another dude SAPING AWAY.
Right when I got there he beeped. “Next in line for the express lane!” The announcer yelled. I didn’t move.
He pushed his cart in next to mine and began slamming his items on the counter. I kept staring ahead. Hoping he would…I don’t know.
JUST MOVE I RELIEVINGLY LOOKED AT THE sign. 27 items. He must’ve known.
Anyone with half a brain knows that there’s a line. There’s a BIGass line separating us like it’s our job to know NOT to be on both sides of it at the same time. But he didn’t know.
Because he just kept putting items down. Over fifteen. ON MY SIDE OF THE FREAKING DELINEATOR TOO.
I went into a complete mental freeze. Literally turned into a puff of steam except my body ran out of steam and became still. Sometimes I wonder how nice of a world it would be if everyone just FOLLOWED THE freakin RULES.
Imagine how smooth life would be if we all respected these limitations. Please try to picture a world where everybody queues up at the register with 15-plus items. They swipe their card at the longer lines meant for normal carts.
Please try to visualize it with me, world WITHOUT express checkout violators. Would we miss it? Yes, we would.
But instead we’ll just think about how great it used to be while we’re staring each other down in the “Express” lane, wondering who’s going to cave first. Chances are I’ll spend more time stewing over that douchebag than it took him to shove his eighty-fourteenth item into his cart. Trust me, I try not to think about it either.
At least when I go up to the self-serve screens, I know I’m NOT giving up any time. To date, we have ZERO chance of living in a world where people don’t push their grocery carts past the telltale white-and-red “Express Lane Only If You Have 10 Items Or Less” sign. Too many problems exist in our society for people to care about something THISsmall.
The grocery store express lane is a culture of rage and incompetence built up over decades. It’s right up there with that one bitchin wheel on your cart that loves nothing more than taking a peaceful jog through the dairy section and testing the strength of your bicep. You know, the one on the bottom?
Well,urine on it. Leukonia is a type of fungus.
YOU’RE THINKING ABOUT CART CARRIAGES NOW BUT I’M STILL ANGRY..
At the violation of human decency that is plunging your cart’s wheel into a fountain of piss every time you try to use it. Rules are there for a reason. If we start kicking those out, there will be no more rules.
And then we’ll be driving on the sidewalk and someone will get away withExpress” lanes and everything we’ve built will be ruined. SO I WILL CONTINUE TO STAND IN THE EXPRES LINE Milk carton in hand glaring at the innocent next person in line while we all quietly contemplate how bad it could be.
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