DOWN WITH PANTS!

This evening while Death? slept off her workday, I went down to Fred Meyer to grab the ingredients for dinner. Fred Meyer is the closest supermarket to our house and it is where I do most of my shopping, yet I find myself asking every single time "why do I still shop here?"

Tonight I had one of the worst checkers in the world. Naomi (her real name, sorry Naomi, but if you read this then maybe you can learn from it) was just awful. All the time I've been going to the supermarket I've seen checkers, even the worse of them, have no problem scanning items. It's just something that seems to be not that hard. Why don't I like to scan my own items? Because I'm slow and have to turn it round and round and round to find the barcode, so I use a real life checker to do it for me. However, this novice checker Naomi was as bad as me. Not a single item scanned correctly the first time through. Round and round and round she turned every item in search of that elusive barcode.

Five minutes go by, and I am still not even at the roller to place my items on it. She's half arguing with a customer ahead of me who wanted 20% off of some stupid item, but it didn't ring it up as such. Instead of calling someone and moving on, you could see the gears working overtime trying to figure out another solution. Having finally dispatched with that customer, I was up to the roller. 10 minutes have now gone by, I have read every single headline possible. Did you know that our tax dollars are paying for Saddam's secret sexy life? That's what the Star or Sun or whatever said.

Finally, only one item remains between Naomi and me. The excitement is building. Of course the last item is really tough and as she held it over her head to examine the barcode I did one of those exasperated back knee bends and a 360 degree turn. Can she really be this bad? Is it her first day? Did they just throw her into the fire and stand back and watch?

When it is my turn, I am in no mood for idle chit-chat, but idle chit-chat is what I get. Yes, I am having a find day. Yes it sure is hot out today. Yes Phish food does sound good, that's why I'm buying it. Yes, for the second time, I am using my debit card. For god sake's hurry up! And don't crush my tomato.....damnit, I said don't crush it.

Of course I look around, and every line is just like this. This is Freddy's now. It's just a fact of life and when I go back it will be exactly the same. But will I stop shopping there? Probably not. It's too close to home and I would have nothing to bitch about and really, in the end, that's all that matters.