What is it about grocery shopping that makes people's brains go out the window? At least twice this morning, I tried to get through an aisle and someone had parked their cart beside either another cart or beside the carts being used to restock the shelves. The aisles are only wide enough for two carts side by side. So if you park your cart next to another cart, that means that no one else can get through. Why is this such a difficult concept for people to grasp? Maybe it means that you need to walk a little distance to pick up your items, but really? Is that so bad? Americans are overweight anyway - a little extra exercise at the grocery store might be a good thing.
And what's with the restocking on a Saturday morning? I would have thought that Saturday morning was a heavy shopping time. Sure seems heavy to me. But this morning, there were several aisles with restocking carts in them. Which meant that half the width of the aisle was taken up somewhat permanently. And meant that, like a lane blocked on a street, only one cart could get by at a time - from either direction. This makes no sense to me on a busy shopping morning.
The other shoppers that have become annoying are the shoppers for the online shopping people. Their carts are actually wider than the rest of us. And they tend to leave them in very inopportune places. Like next to the restocking carts. Do they not understand the concept of allowing others to get up and down the same aisles they are shopping? I don't get it. And these are employees of the store. All the more reason for them to be cognizant of exactly where their cart has been placed and whether it makes it more difficult for the other paying shoppers.
As I've written before, I'm a fan of the self-checkout. But recently, the grocery store where I shop has changed their self-checkout lanes from four checkouts to eight checkouts. How did they do it? They reduced the size of each station in half. That means that you can only put one bag in the station. That works for people buying only a few items. But not for anyone buying more than that. To be fair, they have a second set of self-checkouts that include two full-size checkout stations. But all too often, those are not open. Again, this morning - a busy Saturday morning - those lanes were not open. Now, understand that I don't buy a ton of food and try to use the self-checkout lanes. It's just me in my household. So I usually fill two full-size, reusable bags. That seems like a reasonable amount of food to be able to use the self-checkout. But with the smaller stations, it's almost imposible. I have to fill one bag and then put it in the cart so I can fill the other. This, of course, makes the checkout machine go bananas thinking that I'm stealing items. Argh!
One final rant. Why do I have to choose my payment option on the self-checkout screen and then again on the keypad through which I run my card? This morning, I just used the one of the keypad. But the system wouldn't give me a receipt for my groceries until I did both screens. Fortunately, it was smart enough to know that I had already paid so I didn't have to start that process all over again on the self-checkout screen. But really. Why twice? I don't get it. Do the two systems not talk to each other? Very strange.
Okay, rants over.
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