I ran into Albertson's today at lunch to get a pack of 4 AAA batteries to put in my radio at work so I could listen to something other than the hum of the computer. I went right to the batteries, picked out a pack of good ol' duracells and proceeded to the self-serve check out station, of which there were four. There was someone at each of the stations, but no one waiting in line ahead of me. At two of these stations were people older than 85. At one of these stations was a Hispanic couple who seemed to speak very little English. At the final station was a middle aged woman with a cart full of groceries. I assessed the situation... who would finish first?
The elderly man had only two items, he looked fairly lucid and seemed to know what he was doing.
The woman with the cart full of groceries was younger and seemed to speak English, but the cart was pretty full.
The Hispanic couple pretty much pulled themselves out of the race immediately when they couldn't ring up their first item without help from the "Overseer" of the self-service stations.
And the elderly lady, bless her heart, had trouble right off the bat, not realizing that you couldn't put your purse in the bag area or the computer would calmly state, over and over again, "Please remove the last item from your bag, scan it and place it back in the bag."
So, it seemed elderly man and cart lady were my best bets. Cart lady moved much faster than elderly man, but had so much more in her cart. I thought cart lady might actually win. But alas, her computer told her to, "Please put the item back in the bag" and when she did it told her, "Please remove the last item from your bag..." which caused her to tailspin into the depths of confusion.
So, elderly man had this in the bag... literally. He was done ringing up, his computer wasn't telling him to add or remove anything to his bag and all he had to do was pay when, all of a sudden, the computer told him he needed to, "Please wait for cashier assistance", but Overseer was too busy with Hispanic couple and elderly lady to help him!
That's when I started to laugh out loud, causing the growing line of people behind me to look at me quizzically. I'm sure they figured it out soon enough.
Moral of the story: Please don't use the self-service lane if you can't serve yourself!
p.s... elderly man won.
Meet Ziparoo, aka Zips. She's my new TN'G Milano 125cc scooter and she rocks. I got her almost brand new... only 34 miles down, and got a great deal. She'll supposedly do 60 mph, but I can't go over 40 while in the break-in period. I've been practicing on the back streets of Sammamish, as I'll need to take a driving test to get my motorcycle endorsement on my license. I'm going to start putting my creative touches on her soon, decals and paint and such... I'll post as I go.
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