Skip The Self Checkout And Save Your Sanity

So today is Sunday and Sunday is my designated grocery shopping day.  I go on Sunday for three reasons: 1)  The Sunday paper is full of new coupons - and I love me some coupons!  2) The Grocery Game shopping lists are posted on Sundays which include all of the new coupons and all of the good deals from the grocery store sale flier 3) I am able to shop in peace…aka - KID FREE!

Now in order to get the most out of my food shopping trip, organization is key.  Before I even walk out the door, I print out my Grocery Game list for the store I intend to shop at, highlight all of the items I plan to buy, and find the coupons that I need to bring with me.  I try to organize them in order of the aisle layout of the store. This saves time in the long run so I don’t have to stand in the aisle sifting through my stack of coupons trying to find the one I need.

Let me clarify that I am by no means a fan of grocery shopping.  In fact, it’s one of my least favorite things to do.  However, since no one else in my family does it, I have to, so I try to make my experience as pleasant and stress free as possible.   Well that’s the goal anyway.

So I go to the grocery store, coupons in hand, kid free, and all the time I want to spend perusing the aisles to find some good deals.   Tonight, I decided that grocery shopping really isn’t all that bad when these factors are in play.  I actually enjoyed myself.  Okay…I’m sure the time alone was the main reason for that…but still.  Well let me just say that all of that went out the window when I had to check myself out and bag my own groceries.

Yep. I actually opted to bag my own groceries.  I’m an idiot I know.  But when I was finished shopping, every checkout line was at least six people deep so I decided that I would go to the self-checkout register.  BIG MISTAKE.  Although I didn’t have that much in my cart (or I wouldn’t have even considered the self-checkout option) I immediately started to break out into a sweat as soon as one person stood behind me to wait their turn.  All of a sudden, I was under tremendous pressure to get all of my stuff scanned and bagged as fast as I could.  Of course nothing went smoothly.  I frantically scan and try to place my items in the bag as the computer voice Prudence McPrude (my nickname for one of those computerized talking bitches) is ordering me to do, and I go into a full blown panic attack.  The plastic grocery bags that are on the holder next to the scanner are falling off and when I finally got them back on the hooks, I couldn’t get them open because the plastic was stuck together.  After what seemed like hours, I finally got the bag open and when I put my box of cereal in there, the f’ing thing ripped right down the middle!  NOW I am ready to kill someone!

Meantime, there are now four people behind me waiting although at this point, I’m sure they were in no hurry because they probably were enjoying the show I was putting on - and so was the clerk manning the self-checkout  terminals.  She was working hard to correct my mistakes after Prudie kept barking at me to “please put the items back in the  bag.”  Biotch.  I know I was cursing under my breath and I had to exercise some serious self control because I was about to start yelling and screaming at the thing while beating it senseless with my cantaloupe.

Fast forward 20 minutes and I was finally done.  My items were scanned and bagged, my coupons and cash tendered and I was outta there- leaving behind  a handful of laughing strangers I’m sure.

So what did I learn from this miserable experience?  Patience believe it or not.  If I had just been patient enough to wait in line behind those six people I would have saved myself at least 10 minutes of my valuable alone time and I could have walked out of the store the way I walked in: stress and anxiety free and no one would have even looked twice at me.  Instead, I left feeling completely and utterly incompetent and ready to commit myself to a mental institution because I used the last nerve I had left battling Prudie and her cheap f’ing plastic bags.  I should have decided to skip the self checkout aisle and save my sanity.

So take this valuable tip from me and learn something yourself from my shopping trip from hell: unless you have only one or 2 items, avoid the self-checkout lanes at all costs.  If you do what I did, not only will you be wasting your time, but a perfectly good Xanax as well!!!