Frazz by Jef Mallett for January 11, 2021

Some stores put their beginners on the “Express Checkout” since they are the slowest.

The people Frazz is referring to also are the ones either NOT wearing a mask at all or not wearing it properly – otherwise known as morons or “Trumpians”!

Stores around here are trying to condition us to use the “self check” lines. They work only with exact change or a charge card (one of them won’t even take charge cards, though they do accept debit cards), and they are totally unable to cope with anything more than a 10th of a sigma from the mean. Some of the stores have moved ALL their trained checkers to be either stock-people or freight handlers and have only minimum-wage newbies on the checkout lines.

I personally refuse to use the self check lines. The hell with doing their work for them. Of course I also avoid the one store in town that has moved all the slowest possible people to the checkout lanes.

Sometimes there ARE legit reasons for a couple splitting the purchases. My wife has a jam and candy making biz and whenever we shop together, anything she buys FOR her biz comes out of her biz account. Easier to put through our mutual/personal stuff first so I can pay, then start bagging while she’s doing hers.

Where I shop, the express is also the customer service desk, so the person in front of me with one salad to go could also be trying to send 6 money-grams to Tanzania and argue over his lottery ticket choice. Nope.

I always get stuck behind the extreme couponer, or the person who breaks out the checkbook for a banana and one cup of yogurt.

Use a grocery store that is doing pickup, such as Fred Meyer. You arrange your order online and pay with a credit card, either the day before or a few hours before, then drive there, get in the pickup line, they put the groceries in the trunk or back of your car, and you drive away, never having had to leave the car.

Resisted the idea of doing this for awhile because we’re old dogs, new things are too hard but after the first time, we never want to do it any other way again, even after the pandemic passes.

Aldi’s checkout girls are FAST. They should have hired them to count votes.

When I was first out of college and working in the DC area, the main grocery store near me used the express lanes to train new cashiers—on Saturday mornings! Oh, joy!

Be a LUDDITE, don’t use self check out. Well unless the store pays you to use it. You don’t work there.

“Food-centric holiday”… cute.

Another example of jobs that are going away and never coming back!

I HATE people who use that “it’s all one item” BS. And I hate even more the people that use the Disabled line, instead of the regular ones. This is why I mostly have groceries delivered.

Just wait until the minimum wage goes to $15. Those unskilled, entry level jobs will mostly go away. Then where will young people learn how to work.

Most of the stores I go to have eliminated the express line lately, unless it’s at “customer service” where they sell lottery tickets, cigarettes and such.

The PX & commissary has “military in uniform” lines around the noon hour, as we had limited time to tend to things over lunch. Sometimes I heard strenuous objections when I could get in line ahead of those not in uniform, & some impressive demonstrations of their swearing ability.

I remember when 5 was the limit for the express lane. The one at our nearest store had a cartoon taped to the register showing a bucket of water hanging above it with a rope handy to the clerk’s hand in case of violators.

Never watched “Third Rock From the Sun,” but vividly remember one episode description, from the fourth week of November (i.e. Thanksgiving Week): The aliens observe that half of the humans are stocking up on food, while the other half are making travel reservations, and conclude that a disaster is impending.

My brother-in-law was stuck behind a min-maxer, who wanted to try every possible combination of her items to get the most. After a good ten minutes doing this, she finally left, and my brother-in-law, whose alignment can best be described as Comedic Evil, told the cashier, “I only have five dollars.”The cashier gave him a Look.“And it’s all in nickels.”“I will KILL you!”They had a good laugh, and the cashier summed it up nicely: “It’s very simple! Don’t do drugs and then go shopping!”

I’ve always thought that it should be possible to automate the required maximum number of items in an express line. The registers could be able to count the number of items as they’re rung up and after the limit is reached a suggested donation could be charged to benefit whatever charity was the favorite on that day. Yes, the charge can be removed at the service counter after you first pay the bill at checkout. But the hassle of having to do that and stand in line again might make some people realize that there were other lanes they could have used.

Only tangentially related to today’s strip, but you know how the cash-register tapes you get from the grocery store only have enuf space for a really abbreviated description of what you bought? Well, one time, right after checking out, I was glancing down the receipt when I had to burst out laffing. They had listed my package of baby peeled carrots as “1 BAG BABY PEE”.

Strange that when I click on any reply it takes me to A-Z instead

I’ve never run into those people in the checkout. For me, it’s always “I don’t care what the sign says, ring up my cart” Guy.

My grocery store stopped using express check lanes years ago.