CAFFEINE DEPRIVED SHOPPING TRIP

I'm sitting here waiting for the coffee to get done. Yesterday we were out of coffee and substituted hot chocolate. Not good. Didn't do it for me at all. I only have a couple of mugs of coffee each day, but it is strong French pressed coffee and contains the needed caffeine to function. And then, on no caffeine, we went to the grocery store.

I should have known when we first got in the door that it was going to be bad as I saw a sea of shades of white and grey heads bobbing down the aisle. Then, as we headed down the first aisle which happened to be the donuts and rolls and bread, we found three women perusing the pastries, glued to their parking spots. They weren't buying anything, just standing there looking, and they would not budge. I actually had to climb over one woman's cart to reach the wheat rolls. Same when I got to the tomatoes, only this time there was a man in the mix of permanently parked shoppers. These folks, however, were engaged in an animated conversation about parsnips and the man's hunting prizes of doves, and how parsnips and doves together were so good. I again stuck my arm in and grabbed a few tomatoes. It went this way through the whole store: meat department, cheese and yogurt department, and frozen veggie department. When I reached the front of the store, after going around the perimeter as usual, I was shaking and near tears. I could not handle one more minute of those rude, obnoxious, senior citizens who thought they were the only people in the store. I told Ernie I had to get out of there.

We picked the shortest aisle, the check out yourself aisle, and started scanning our purchases after informing the machine that we spoke English. The first item to scan was a bottle of inexpensive wine. Beep-beep-beep, it went through the scanner just fine, then informed me to put the item in the bag. I obliged, and then, FLASH, bright lights started blinking and the machine demanded my ID card! Get serious folks! I'm 63! The cashier in charge of the four self checking machines noticed the blinking lights and worked her magic and reset the machine to again ask for the next item. All went well until we came to the produce and we were informed by the machine that you must look up the PLU for the tomatoes, romaine, and cucumbers and enter the that number via the number pad. Did as commanded. As we reached the end of the groceries the almost human machine screamed in capitol letters to PUT THE LAST ITEM IN THE BAG BEFORE SCANNING THE NEXT ITEM. We already had done so, but obliged and picked up the romaine and then put it back into the bag. The machine was satisfied and it commanded to SCAN THE NEXT ITEM! Instead I pushed the finish and pay button. This must have confused the check out monster and it again screamed to SCAN THE NEXT ITEM. I punched the finish and pay button about six times which must have jerked the machine back to reality because it now politely asked if I wanted to pay with cash, debit, credit, check, EBT card, coupons, and I think a couple other choices. I punched debit, it okayed me, we hustled out of there, and the monster was ready to do battle with the person behind me. I just hope it's next victim was one of the folks who annoyed me so! Serves them right! And I'll never go shopping again on no caffeine.

(I have nothing against senior citizens, as I am one of them myself. But the combination of no caffeine and a Wednesday Social Security payday in Yuma, Arizona, the home of tens of thousands of snowbirds, was more than I could handle.)