Grocery Store Etiquette

Okay seriously? Am I the only one that has grocery store etiquette? I mean it doesn't take much but common sense, however I guess common sense is something a lot of people are lacking anymore.

On a side note, what the heck was going on today?!?! After taking my Little to the doctor we stopped at the commissary on Carson to check prices on diapers (heads up dear military friends they ARE cheaper at the commissary here...) and holy buckets!!! The line was out of control! Thankfully I wasn't actually buying anything but it still surprised me.

Anyways, we headed off to Walmart for a bit of light shopping. I needed something to store all these darn scrubs in, seeing as I've completely run out of room. So I pull into the parking lot and everyone and their sister seems to be there. I mean its Friday afternoon and its like everyone is stocking up for WWIII or something! (Sort of the same as the commissary at Carson) Kaylin and I cruise around looking at the different shirts and scrubs, and head back to the plastic storage. Personally, I hate buying plastic storage containers, they are SO expensive! I'd rather hang stuff up or something of that nature. But oh well, what can you do at this point.

I find a plastic storage container I don't mind, more than I really want to pay but then again I don't want to pay anything. We mosey around the rest of the store, picking up a few things for Kaylin for breakfast, some coffee creamer, and gatorade. We head to the check out and naturally there is a mile long line, it's Friday afternoon, at WALMART. Its like playing a game, how many people can be in the same store at the same time? Ready, GO! I found the self check out line and parked the cart in front of it, counting the people and praying it didn't take very long. I had one thing on my mind...it was almost 3 pm, I hadn't eaten much of anything yet and it took everything in me not to buy junk food while I was there. I wanted to get out of the store, and head to Albertacos...which I had been promising myself since we left for Carson to begin with.

I take a look in my cart, juice, waffles, sunflower seeds, CRAP! I had totally forgotten about the 2 mozzarella sticks I had gotten from the deli for Kaylin and I to share in the store. I can't go through self check out because the weight of the empty container of mozzarella sticks will cause drama. I steer my cart out of the line and head for another check out. Perfect this one only has a few people, and the guy in front of me has 1 item! It'll be a breeze! Or so I thought...Naturally the line I was in was the slowest of them all, how this always happens I will never understand. The two ladies in the front of the line have quite a bit of groceries, when I worked at Walmart my item-per-minute average was between 500-700 every day. How hard it is to scan, bag, and twirl the bags around I will never understand. My goal was always to get that customer out the door as fast as I could with the least amount of bags possible.

Anyways, I'm standing there waiting to load my few select items onto the belt and the guy in front of me is standing at the end of the belt, with his 1 item! I figured he wanted to wait for the ladies to get their stuff closer to the end, that way he didn't get into their personal space (I've seen that happen too). No biggie, the cashier is scanning stuff and the belt is getting more and more empty. Okay, that's definitely enough space for your $4 bottle of Listerene. Go ahead, put it on the belt. Step forward, so I can load up my stuff. The guy didn't move! Instead the cashier got closer to the end of the ticket, 5 items left...4 items...3...2...1..The dude still hadn't moved from his position at the end of the belt. The hungry part of me wanted to shove him forward to be able to load up the belt, but the part of me knew that he could kick my ass and then some didn't want to move. The dude didn't move until the women had checked out completely and were walking away from the lane!

Gah! I was so irritated as I quickly stuffed my stuff on the belt so the people behind me, who had a cart full, could load up the belt too. I'm not sure if I'm just anal, OCD, or remember from my cashier days (I'm sure it's some unhealthy combination of them all), but I always load the belt and the cart a certain way. It makes it so much easier on the cashier when all the cold stuff is together, all the boxes of hamburger helper are in the same place, and all the meat is in a nice chunk. I'm not saying what order they should be in, but I'm saying coming from experience its SO much easier if you do it this way.

Anyways, the rant was more about the guy who would not move up to save his life? I mean I totally get the personal space and everything but would it have been that hard to move out of the way so the rest of us could leave as quickly as you?