Filtering Life

I consider myself to be extremely self-sufficient…even to a fault sometimes.( No nodding Ryan) I don’t know what it is about the self-checkout lines at grocery stores but all of a sudden I am overwhelmed at the steps involved and fickle-ness ( if that is a word) of the scanner. Usually, Ryan is the one who does the checkout process while I shamelessly flip through People and US trying to catch up on Hollywood superficiality for FREE and then I leave when he is finished. Oh sure, I may fish out my Kroger card or hand him a few items…but for all intents and purposes…he does the whole checkout process without me.
Back to my story, I was talking on my cell phone ( I know..obnoxious in public) walking around Kroger telling Candace about my drama with our puppy when I decided to go in the self-checkout line. I had pushed around one of the retard carts that are only a 1/3 of the size of a regular cart. (I am a special ed teacher so I can use the word retard in non-offensive ways) I had packed that baby full of groceries and never assessed the situation coming up to the checkout line. I quickly realized that I could not multi-task by talking, scanning, and bagging so I hung up with Candace mid-story. Just as quickly as I hung up a huge line accumulated behind me. There is NOTHING worse than seeing a bunch of people in your peripheral and catching them shifting back and forth leg to leg….the ultimate passive aggressive way of saying “YOU ARE TAKING FOREVER YOU INCOMPETENT WOMAN!” It was a horrendous display of dexterity as I was trying to get things out of the retard cart, find the bar code, scan it correctly, put it in the bag so the automated checkout thing wouldn’t say out loud “Please place your items in the bag, please place your items in the bag, please place your items in the bag.” The whole process is weight triggered and if you go too fast and it doesn’ t sense that you have put the product to the left of the scanner it starts talking at you putting more unneeded pressure. I also had the audacity to buy vegetables without barcodes so you have to use the twirly log with all the codes on it which presents just another obstacle to checking out efficiently. My last Everest of the day was getting all these lumpy bags back into my retard cart. I only spilled my package of Soup-in-the-Hand on the ground and got out of there as soon as I could without making eye contact with anyone in line behind me. I could not bare their look of disgust and dissatisfaction.
Just reliving this whole experience through typing has proved anything but therapeutic. My pits are sweating and I just want to do something super competent to redeem my sense of self-worth. I think I will go teach special ed students math….yeah..that will make me feel better….already I feel redeemed.