Self(ish) Checkout

Can anyone tell me what the self checkout line at the grocery store is for? I mean, I know it's purpose, it just seems like now one else does. Mine impression has always been that one should use the self checkout when all the normal lines are long and all you have is 5 or 6 items with easily visible bar codes. Otherwise you go through a normal line. Is that crazy of me? I don't think so.

The other day I was at the Safeway, I need to make two purchases. I grabbed those two items and headed to self checkout. Seems like a pretty simple transaction right? Well there are for scanners in this section of the store. On this particular day one was broken, one was occupied by a young woman who clearly grasped the concept, and the other two were being used two total douche bags. The first was an older woman overflowing with groceries. Including at least 30 cans of cat food. How selfish an inconsiderate is that? Why would this woman possibly think she would be faster or more efficient than the 5-8 people whose job it is to scan and bag your massive cart of groceries? The other guy was even worse. He didn't have nearly as many things as the old woman but the only thing he had was fruit and vegetables. You know, as in items lacking a scan able bar code and therefore must be weighed and searched for on a menu to find the appropriate price. The type of menu that one would memorize had they say, worked there on a daily basis looking up fruits and vegetables on daily basis while helping others. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that a cashier would have finished checking these two out at least 10 times faster than they could. Instead they have to be assholes and try and do it themselves. Do they have some sort of phobia and talking to strangers? Are they embarrassed other their groceries and don't want other people handling them? Are they germaphobes? Because of them the normally fast self checkout line ended up 7 or 8 people deep, all of whom had an appropriate amount of products for the line, and all of whom were able to check out on the one available computer before these idiots finished.

It's little things like that that really drive me crazy. It's kind of hard to have hope for the future of America when so many people are so stupid.