Checks & Groceries

I try to do my bit around the house, "bit" being a well-chosen descriptor.  Nonetheless, in that spirit, I help out with the grocery shopping.  You get to know your store's layout, bring a list, and things go smoothly...until, whilst innocently waiting in the checkout line, some benighted shopper in line ahead of you still living in the last century drags out her checkbook.

I realize some of my faithful readers will cry "you said HER!" but I must patiently point out that in some 30 years of observing this behavior, the one constant is that it is invariably a woman.  With the speed of today's checkouts, the ceremony of looking through a purse, dragging out a checkbook, fumbling for a pen, writing the damned thing - all AFTER checkout is complete rather than simultaneously - wears pretty thin.

There should be special lanes for check writers.  Then they can waste each others' time at will.