Sometimes it’s a great thing to say, “I’ve kept a seat warm for you”. However, when you are coming out of the stall and saying this to the next patron, things might get weird. Sometimes you don’t know how recently the toilet was in use. Some people may like it, but when I sit down and the seat’s still warm, I get a little uneasy.
It’s fantastic that retailers still do mail-in rebates. Instead of offering a rebate you just offer a lower-priced product by the rebate amount. You will move more products and not bait and switch.
I don’t clip coupons because they are a waste of time and I won’t purchase a product, cut out the barcode, copy my receipt and wait for the mailman to steal my rebate. Western Digital still owes me $50 from 1998 for a 500 MB hard drive.
Recently I was picking up some eyeglasses at Costco. Side note, if you don’t have insurance for your eyeballs then Costco is the way to go for exams and corrective lenses. When I got to the counter and the lady asked how could she help me. From the other side of the showcase, a lady said she was here first. Yeah, she was there first but she was still shopping and trying on glasses for her child. She was there first but wasn’t in line to pay, there is a difference. It’s like going to the grocery store and getting there when the doors open, shopping for hours, and cutting in front of someone who just arrived and got their items and is ready to check out. People love the FIFO system, but sometimes LIFO is relevant.
Also, Why are the horned-rimmed glasses from the ’50s and 60’s so popular? The same glasses that labeled you a nerd then are making you cool today. Strange world.
Self-checkouts are far superior to express checkouts because you don’t have to interact with humans and let them handle your goods. Follow these simple tips to get in and out and back to your hobbit hole in no time.
No light items
Items must be heavy enough to register on the scale. Kool-Aid packets are a great example. Purchasing Kool-Aid also shows you make poor decisions, so getting in this line probably reveals this.
No Alcohol
At this point in our technological world of grocery purchasing, there is no DNA test or retinal scans to prove your age. If a cashier has to come over to verify your age you are in the wrong line. Plus you need to buy your booze at a liquor store so you won’t run into someone from your bible study class and pretend like you are just making beer chili.
Respect the Item Limits
Self Checkout is not for full buggies, crazy couponers, or hoarders filling the fallout shelter for the coming apocalypse.
Know the Code
It needs to have a bar code! If you buy produce at least know the item number. If you have to tap your tuber by touch screen, pick a different line.
Items need to fit
Trying to lift a 60″ plasma TV onto the self-checkout scanner is obviously not going to work. If the item is too large to fit on the scanner, you have failed us. Call the manager to be escorted from the premises.
Don’t move bags to your buggy
Some robot-scales get angry when you remove items from the bagging area. This only shows you have too many items to be in this line. Everything you purchase should fit in the bagging area. It is even better if there is a handheld scanner and you can leave all the barcodes up in the cart.
Credit, Debit, or NFC Only!
No cash, no checks, no gift cards. I’ve tried (all except the check). Debit cards are great: swipe, enter your pin, grab your bags and receipt. Watching someone smooth out a crinkled dollar and feed it into the money bot orifice, makes me want to fling soup cans at your face.
Supermarkets have hit a log jam when it comes to express lanes. They seem like a good idea but they are fatally flawed because they only have one rule: Item Limits (which are always violated). Here are a few new rules that supermarkets should adopt to increase the performance of Express Lane.
High-Performance Cashiers and Baggers
Cashiers that are knowledgeable of what they’re doing go a long way. Would it hurt a cashier to smile and at least pretend to enjoy employment?. Express lane workers should be like the Navy Seals of cashiers. It’s frustrating when a volunteer senior citizen works the express lane and considers bar codes “the mark of the beast” and laser scanners “apocalyptic weaponry”. Baggers need to know that bread, Clorox, and ground beef shouldn’t co-mingle in a bag.
Accept only Debit Cards
Nothing is more frustrating than seeing someone whip out a checkbook to pay for five items. Cash is clumsy and no one can do simple math anymore. No gift cards either, 100% of the time there isn’t enough money to foot the bill, so that causes longer waits for your decision to write a check, pay with cash, or find your debit/credit card. Even credit cards take too long because people forget their own names and how to sign them.
Surcharge for going over the limit.
There should be a 50% surcharge for each over-the-limit item and increases incrementally for each item you go over. This will stop people with 100 items from getting in the 20 items or less line when their grocery bill goes all Fibonacci on them.
No Impulse Items
Remove all the candy and magazines so that people will pay attention when the grocery belt is open for them to place their items. Who cares what celebrity is overweight or having an out-of-wedlock baby with an alien.
No Cigarette Purchases
No lung candy since we are not allowing any other candy purchases in this line. Nothing is worse than someone finishing up their two-item purchase and then remembering they need a soft pack of reds. The cashier takes minutes opening the case and bringing back the hard pack which causes great anger in the customer. This cigarette volley goes on as you watch customers in other lanes with full carts leaving the store.
No “Valued Customer” card signup
If you already possess this card and have it ready then you are free to use it. However, don’t query the cashier entering five phone numbers because you forgot your card.
I think Walmart is the only company that doesn’t maintain its shopping carts. They’ve devised a trick. This trick encourages you to endure the punishment of wobbly wheels for the shopping duration. The trick is they cover the solarium with a bunch of uneven stone tiles. You won’t notice the wheels are busted until you’ve been distracted by a Walmart elder and the lure of cheap candy, bananas, and detergent before hitting the smooth surfaces. They figure that you’ve traveled all this distance from the corral and you won’t walk back to get another. You might risk offending the elder and get scolded: “Well, back in my day, we had to strap saddle bags on a mule when we wanted Doritos from the five and dime, I think that buggy will do you just fine sonny boy”.
Sometimes you get lucky and there aren’t many buggies in the corral at Walmart. This gives you a bit of a smooth surface to do a little test run to see if all the wheels are straight. I’m sure Wal Mart will catch on to this, and extend the rough tiles into the buggy corral. It’s really only a matter of time before Walmart becomes just a rough uneven terrain of shopping on dirt floors. Then you won’t notice there are no wheels on the buggy at all.
Watches are quite annoying and I was hoping they would eventually go away. I think it’s hilarious that marketing has tricked people into wearing watches again. For me, the smartphone did away with the need for a watch. I grew up wearing Ironman triathlons. The rubbery plastic band would begin to reek of rancid cheese after any pre-pubescent physical activity. The watch would also pull the hairs out of your arms if had one of those metal Cylon accordion bands.
But here we are in a smartphone era and watches are still selling. Why are watches so popular now? Because they’re stuffing smartphones into watches. Brilliant! The only watch I currently own is a SkyCaddy Watch. It tells me how far into the woods I am. It also tells me it’s time to give up looking for it.
Enjoy your favorite bread from this toaster!
Since we’ve been shopping at Aldi we’ve saved a bunch of money. Here are a few things to take note of while shopping at Aldi.
Bring a Quarter
Even out the cart corral, don’t pull from the short stack. You should always keep a quarter in your car, or bolt cutters. Sometimes Aldi will have two sets of carts, but one corral is empty. I feel bad for the person who has to sacrifice their quarter to start the link chain. If someone gives you a cart, pay it forward to someone else. Once you get your buggy, don’t start going through your purse or wallet. Get out of the way. Go inside.
The Entry
Don’t linger near the front door in amazement at all the food stuffs. Some Aldi’s place all the junk food near the front. I wish they would move the junk to another aisle. The entry is clogged with people. They are deciding on how to ruin their innards. At least they don’t use corn syrup or synthetic colors now (some items).
Brand loyalty
This is not a place to shop if you are brand loyal. Almost all their foods are copycats and they taste just as good. Everything except the “Ranch” tortilla chips. You just can’t beat Cool Ranch Doritos. I think it’s because Frito Lay still uses red dye 40.
The Meats
The pork loin and ribeye steaks are tasty and a very good deal. The carne picada is the absolute worst. They also have some very good unprocessed lunch meats for sandwiches. BTW, isn’t a pig unprocessed lunch meat? Too bad they don’t have wild pigs roaming the store.
The Produce
This is the only thing I don’t like about Aldi, everything seems like it’s on verge of rotting. You have to eat it quick or it will spoil. I’ve heard they are fixing that though. We will see.
BYOB
Be prepared to bag your own groceries at that long counter near the exit. Try to fit all your groceries into one bag and walk through the parking lot like someone in the Arnold Strongman Classic. You can buy a bag from Aldi or bring a trash bag. When you unload them at the house, put the trash bag in the receptacle. After you have used the groceries, put the trash back in the bag you bought them in. The circle is now complete.
Be helpful
Offer to take shoppers’ carts back for them. You can determine someone’s greed by how upset they get on losing a quarter. Hopefully, you can time it just right. You can exchange a cart for a quarter in the parking lot. This way, you don’t have to walk back to the storefront.
Hope this helps…
I now understand why people wear pajamas and house shoes while shopping at Walmart. However, If you really want to draw attention to yourself, wear a red shirt with tan pants to Target. If you are caught in this situation, you have two options. You can tell them you don’t work there. Alternatively, you can try to help them out anyway, such as…
The same could be said for a blue shirt and tan pants to Best Buy. If you are a tech guy, you will probably help them more than the people who actually work there. Knowing anything about electronics gives you an advantage.
The customer is ultimately the one who gives you money, but that shouldn’t make them right. Customers should implore some common sense before they go asking inane questions to store associates.
I worked in retail for a few years at Office Depot and it was quite frustrating to deal with some people. Most of the time people would come in asking for ink refills or typewriter ribbons. I would ask what model they own and they couldn’t remember nor would they bring the empty with them. They bought it at Office Depot, so I guess that was enough.
Of course on the other end of the spectrum, if you work at a place you should know your store and what you stock. There have been times when I’ve asked someone at Best Buy where a certain item is located. They are quick to reply they don’t carry the item and go about killing time until their break or shift ends. I always make it a point to find the item, locate the said employee and show them the item they don’t carry. Then proceed to order it from amazon from my smartphone.
Recommended website. Not Always Right
Daily Irritant 
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