Grocery Shopping

Have you ever seen a woman with young children using the self-checkout at the grocery store? Probably not. And there is a very good reason why, as I recently discovered. . .

Mikie and I went to the grocery store one evening after work. I needed to deposit a check, and figured we could pick up some groceries while we were there. The grocery store has a nack for strategically displaying kids books near the bank. And, since Mike and I encourage Mikie's love of reading (ie buy most books he asks for), I agreed to buy him the activity book he found. It actually looked neat: it came with models of the finding Nemo characters that you could put together to show the insides of each animal (clown fish, dolphin, shark, crab, etc.)

Of course, we still had shopping to do, and Mikie desperately wanted to open the book and start assembling the characters. Pushing him through the store (and not in a cart, I literally used my hand to direct him down each aisle), we managed to collect the few groceries I needed. By this point, I had a choice:

1. Do I stand in one of the three manned checkout lines, waiting patiently behind people with carts overflowing with groceries, all the while explaining to my child that he cannot open the book until we pay for it, or
2. Do I opt for one of the deserted self-checkout lines, which would allow me to pay for the book and leave the store in minutes?

Obviously, I chose option #2. What sensible (more likely, impatient) mother wouldn't? The smart ones, that's who.

Of my five items, what was the first thing I scanned? The book. Rookie mistake. Because, if you have ever used the self-checkout, you know that you must "Place your item in the bag" and LEAVE IT THERE. Every time you remove an item from the bag, the computer locks up on you, because it can't keep an accurate weight and thinks you are trying to shoplift. So, everytime Mikie put a finger on the book (even if it was still in the bag), the machine locked up saying "Please wait for attendant". Of course, the attendant could have easily come over and pressed some buttons that allowed my child to take the book, allowing me the freedom to finish scanning my items in peace. But, the attendant was busy bagging at one of the manned lines while talking to her friend, oblivious to what was going on at the self-checkout line. So, Mikie and I suffered through scanning the remainder of the items.

When I got home and began to tell my story to Mike (looking for sympathy), he said "Why did you scan the book first. I would have scanned it last!" Not exactly the sympathy I was looking for. I chose to believe that he would have made the same mistake. Either that, or he already had a similar issue and never admitted to it.

Happy Shopping.

Love, The Trahans