The 8 Morons Ahead Of You In The Checkout Line
1. Super Couponer
After presenting the cashier with a stack of coupons as thick as The Deathly Hallows, she argues with the cashier over the finer points of each one, including a long debate over whether a single item coupon applied to a double-pack can be tripled or not, and wants a top-ranking executive from the Frito-Lay corporation to explain why her coupon is only good for the Yam and Chive Doritos, not the Hot ‘n’ Bothered Ranch. After all the discounts, the store owes her money, which requires a special form to be filled out and notarized, enabling her to jam up the line at the supermarket bank branch as well.
2. Debit Dunce
His attempts to speed things along by using a debit card instead of cash fail miserably since he is techno-tarded, resembling a poorly trained circus chimp as the cashier talks him through the process. It’s like watching ground control help the spunky stewardess land the jet in a cheesy 70s disaster flick, but without the excitement or funky music soundtrack. During this excruciating exchange, he swipes the card the wrong way three times, enters an invalid PIN twice and presses CANCEL instead of OK. After this definitive display of ineptness, he realizes he used the wrong card or forgot to get cash back (or both!), requiring the whole sale to be voided and re-rung. His neck is the next thing that needs wrung.
3. Smartphone Dumbass
She thinks she’s multi-tasking, but this yakking yahoo is accomplishing only one thing: pissing everybody off. Ignoring the cashier, the growing line of grumbling people behind her, and the basic rules of social etiquette, she fumbles through the transaction while chatting on the phone. If she’s under 27, substitute “chatting” with “texting frantically.” While in the midst of her Call That Shall Not Be Postponed, she can barely pay attention, acting as if this whole checking out/interacting with the cashier/paying for stuff thing is a major irritation. You’d forgive this phone-paux if the conversation included “I’m not hanging up until you agree to release the hostages” or “We have a confirmed terrorist. Take the shot, Scarecrow!” instead of “Um-huh. Yeah. Like, whatever.”
4. Toy Collecting Clod
He starts off by trying to negotiate a discount on a Barbie’s Unrealistic Expectations Play Set because of a microscopic crimp on one edge of the box. Next he demands that an employee go to the stockroom to hunt down the four alternate colors of the Hot Wheels Celebrity DUI Porsche, as well as a case of Star Wars action figures numbered THX1138, which contains the limited edition Nimrodian Clone Guard, according to his eBay sources. During the wait, he has a shouting match with the district manager in his attempt to purchase all 14 of the store’s Fondle Me Grover dolls.
5. Foggy Old Fogy
This grumpy geriatric steers the store’s Handi-Kart with the same finesse as his ’72 Lincoln Continental, sideswiping several displays and shelves of product as he careens into the checkout counter. Once there, he has no concept of the modern retail world, seeing price scanners and card readers as the stuff of Buck Rogers. Somehow he manages to select the seven items in the store that won’t scan properly, and is utterly perplexed that the cashier can’t just “punch in the price.” He creates more delays by questioning the price of every item, because the last time he went shopping a loaf of bread cost 6 cents. When it comes to pay, it takes this miser another 10 minutes to pry his money out of an antique coin purse the size of a tea bag.
6. Bagged Lady
She has her own special way of placing her purchases into shopping bags, and makes a dramatic display of un-bagging and re-bagging everything the cashier just did. Although her trip home consists of a six-minute cab ride, she treats each item like a Faberge Egg, quadruple bagging and packing as if it is being shipped to Zimbabwe via high seas galleons and camel caravans. Finally, she has the gall to ask for even more bags because “they’re great for the pugs’ poop.” Hey lady, how about one more bag? Over your head!
7. Numismatic Numbskull
After carefully checking her bills to ensure she doesn’t inadvertently pay with a silver certificate or Confederate Civil War note, she insists that her $17.68 in change be given all in coin, badgering the cashier to sift through the till for wheat pennies and elusive Liberty dimes. Any U.S. state quarters she receives must be examined to ensure they aren’t duplicates, and if so she’ll want the supervisor to open the time-lock safe to look for the specific ones needed for her collection.
8. Gas Station Grocery Shopper
This oddball proceeds to buy two weeks worth of groceries at the gas station and slowly turns the mini-mart into an in-convenience store as the counter is piled high with pork-rinds, baloney, milk, stale bread, questionable canned goods and a dust-covered bag of Mangy Muttz, or some other off-brand dog food. The hapless cashier is overwhelmed by the number of items she has to ring up (and the fact that someone is actually buying this crap), so she scans in a slow daze, her usual transaction being a single soda, a pack of smokes or a little bag of “N-Gorge Ultra-Stimu-hancing Herbal Supplements.”