An Open Letter to the Grocery Shoppers of America

Dear asshole:

I have spent the past ten years of my life coming up with guidelines that should help you with some Grocery Store problems that you seem to have. There are ten of them, like commandments. Think of them that way, since God will punish you if you break them.


1. The U-Scan lines usually have two options, "Fifteen Items or Less" or "Any Size Order." These are not interchangable. If you are unsure how many items you have in your cart - and let's face it, if you have a cart, you probably shouldn't be in the Fifteen Items line - just compare the number of items in your cart to the number of children you have. Multiply times two. I think you're over, lady.


2. PLU issues. We all know that 4088 is the PLU for red bell peppers. If your grocery store does not have the little printers in the produce department that print the labels out and you also have the memory of a chicken and cannot remember this four-digit number - despite your ability to remember your parole officer's home phone number - please do not get in the Express line.


3. Back to #2 for a second. If you are buying the Tomatoes on a Vine, get the Hell out of the Express line. The PLU for this product doesn't exist and you will cause a shutdown not seen since Dick Cheney wore Dr Scholl's Gellin' pads on a flight to Tehran.

4. There are many places to write a check. Like say to the electric company when the day it's due is the day before you get paid. That's the time to work the float, honey, not when you're in the Express Line. If you write a check in the Express Line, I am fairly sure that if you get run down in the parking lot by a silver Honda Element a few minutes later, it's at worst a misdemeanor. Totally worth it for the Element driver, I'm just saying.

5. I'd like to revisit #2 again. Baking potatoes and red potatoes are not the same. Don't act stupid and fuck the machine up. It can see you, you know.


6. If you smoke cigarettes, please do not get in the Express line. The lady behind the counter has to meander - and yes, that's what she does, meander - over to the Customer Service counter and remember exactly what kind of Merits you are after and chances are she will get it wrong, thus nullifying the concept of "Express" since five minutes will pass before you can continue buying your death sticks.

7. Beer. I have mixed feelings about this. Don't try and buy beer at the U-Scan lines; it slows things down because you have to show your probably fake ID to the sleepy U-Scan operator. You'll get away with it, but it does piss the rest of us in line off; we've shoved the beer down our pants and we hate you for not being so clever.

8. If you have crumpled money, you are too poor to check out in the Express Line. In fact, I think cash payments should be forbidden altogether. Run the card and leave! I have spent so much time behind a cash payer jamming their copper coins (I think they call them pennies) and crumpled bills ("Ones!") that by the time it was over, a Democrat was President again.


9. Back to #2. No exotic vegetables. I'm fairly sure if you say the word FENNEL to Crystal, the Express Line "operator," her head expodes and you actually have to wait for them to hire a new person to come and restart the "computer." Though I will say if you have fennel at your grocery store, it means the Gays have moved in and your property values just doubled.

10. Don't pick your shit up until the transaction is complete, despite your apparent addiction and compulsion to double-bag even a roll of paper towels. How dumb can you be that you don't get that it's a scale? And if you pick it up and get yelled at by Crystal, don't act bitchy...the surprise is YOU are the only person dumber than SHE is.

Other than that, please enjoy your shopping trip. Yuppie asshole.