Read the sign!

There's a good chance I've already ranted about tonight's subject in the past, but I'm too lazy to try and find out for sure, and even if I have, it's worth mentioning again. So here I go.

Anyhow, I was at Wal-Mart tonight. Now, I know that I've ranted about various ridiculous human behavior that I've witnessed at Wal-Mart and other stores like it in the past, so a trip to Wal-Mart is always quite likely to yield blog material. And tonight's trip did not disappoint, because I suffered through what might be my single biggest pet peeve. I'm serious. Those who know me know that I'm fairly mild mannered. I might get short or terse, or give someone attitude, but it's very rare that I get upset enough to yell, and I really can't recall ever going off on someone in public. However, were I ever to get crazy fired up and go off on a random stranger, I would almost GUARANTEE it would be because of this one thing: someone going into an express checkout with dramatically more items than you're supposed to have!

It happened again tonight. This guy had raided the toiletries section and had two levels of a mini-cart lined with soap, shampoo, travel size stuff, etc, and he was scooping it up to the register, and the cashier was ringing it up, like nothing was wrong. That, I might add, is what makes this situation particularly frustrating, because there are two people involved, and I can never figure out who I should really be mad at - the person who saunters up to the register blatantly ignoring the rules, or the cashier who refuses to tell said person to go pound sand (or, if they insist on being polite, telling them to go to a different aisle).

Let me be clear, I'm not the item Nazi here. I personally count to make sure I'm under the limit if I'm not sure, but if you're a couple items over, that's not really a problem. Most of these express lanes say "About X items or less", so they give you some wiggle room. There was no way this guy thought he only had 20 items, and no way the cashier thought that either. I think tonight I was more upset at the cashier for not simply saying: "Excuse me sir, this is the express lane". It's a more serious problem at Wal-Mart than some places, because their express checkouts are designed for that sole purpose. They don't have the conveyor, so when someone has a ton of items, it takes extra long.

This behavior has become more widespread in recent years, at least to my eyes. I would like to simply pass it off on the ever increasing self-centeredness of our society, and I'm sure that's part of it, but I see another culprit as well - the mini-carts. It pains me to say this, because I love the mini-cart, but I think people seem to have this belief, conscious or unconscious, that if they are using the small cart, they can use the express lane, no matter how many items they've crammed into the thing. It seems to me that the most outrageous violaters are always mini-cart users these days, which is a change from when I used to see the typical express lane violaters as those who had stuffed a bunch of small items into a basket.

So, please, if you're a violater, think about what you're doing next time, and obey the rules. And if you're a cashier, have the fortitude to enforce the rules. You'll both contribute to make the world a better place. Well, at least a better place for me, anyhow.