Your in your local supermarket, feeling happy cos you’ve managed to complete the weekly shop and heading for the checkout when your heart sinks.  They all have queues. 

You look at the people in the queues, or more importantly you look at their baskets and trolleys to work out which will be the shortest queue.  Me?  I look for the checkout with the prettiest girl!

But anyway getting back to the queues, have you ever wondered why they are so long?  Is it because they don’t have enough checkouts? Is it because the checkout staff are too slow?  Is it even because people are buying too much stuff??

No No and No….

After much careful observation I can announce that I’ve worked it out.  It’s simple.  It’s because most people seem to have forgotten that they will to pay for their trolley load of food.

The checkout staff rings up the final item, presses the grand total key, and asks the customer for £152.68   (well don’t you buy a couple of bottles of champagne with your weekly shop?).

What does the customer do?  Do they have their credit card ready to hand over?  Do they have the cash ready to count and pass to the assistant?  NO THEY DON’T!!!

They have to retrieve their bag from under the shopping, go through 5 pockets to find their purse and then look in three compartments to find the credit card.  The assistant then asks if they have a store loyalty card… which of course they do, and of course its store elsewhere in the bag.

Men are no better.  OK so they don’t have a handbag buried under the shopping, but they normally have twice as many jacket and trouser pockets to go through to find that piece of plastic.

Whilst all this is going on, the rest of us are stood waiting like dummys in the checkout line with our ice cream melting away…. Are we getting out payment method ready?  That would be too easy!  No I reckon they must take the time to hide their credit cards even deeper so they can have their time of glory.

I must admit I’m getting less stressed these days by this… I’ve discovered that by putting your champagne between the frozen peas you can get it nicely chilled in the queue, get your fluted glasses out and STILL have time to pop your cork before your get to the checkout.  Makes a good chat up line offering the prettiest checkout girl a glass of champagne whilst she rings you up.