Life in the Fast Lane

Claire and I visited the City of St. Paul's very own Como Zoo today. We were joined on our excursion by Claire's friend, Addison, and Addison's grandma. Aside from today being the hottest day I've ever experienced while on this planet, it was a good time. Luckily, it rained off and on... so not only was it scorching hot, but the humidity was incredible. You could have fried an egg on my butt. Unfortunately, zoo personnel wouldn't allow me to set up my own egg frying booth without a permit, but I'll come prepared next time. Note to self: Call St. Paul City Hall about a peddler's permit.

Then to top off a great day, Claire and I stopped by Rainbow Foods on the way home to pick up some frozen pizza and Coca-Cola (because, damnit, I deserve it). But Claire was so exhausted she nearly fell asleep in the grocery cart. Since we had so few items, and Rainbow recently installed four Self Checkout aisles, I figured I'd get out of there before Claire actually collapsed in the cart. I mean, aren't self-serve checkout lanes one of the greatest inventions of the last 10-15 years? Seriously. What a great way to expedite the shopping experience. I get to avoid the inevitable situation of a cashier asking Claire, "Are you helping your daddy shop today?" Or at our particular Rainbow Foods, there's ALWAYS the same husky stock boy in my checkout aisle who thinks it's funny to act like he's placing one of my 2-liter bottles of Coke into his apron pocket while he bags my groceries. "Yea that's hilarious, Lumpy. Just like it was the 24 other times you've done it before... now can you put the Coke in a bag so I can go home?" And I've yet to go through a manned checkout aisle where the person in front of me didn't try to correct the cashier, such as "Excuse me, but I think these cans of peas are on sale for 75 cents, and your machine charged me 79 cents each." And don't even get me started on check writers. If you don't have blue hair, then why the hell are you writing a check? Seriously! Anyway, where was I? Oh, yea... the self checkout aisle.

So we arrived at the self serve lanes, where I found three scanning stations occupied by "normal" people. I can't say with 100 percent certainty they were normal, but each person appeared to grasp the purpose behind the self check-out lane concept - to expedite the shopping experience for people with just a few items who don't want to stand in line for 20 minutes, thereby freeing up the manned lanes for people with full carts, a fear of electronic commerce, or both. I was waiting patiently for about five seconds until I noticed the fourth self checkout lane was occupied by a couple of people who are apparently of subnormal intelligence because they had a cart FULL of groceries. Now to their defense, I'll say our Rainbow Foods self checkout lanes don't actually specify a maximum number of allowable items required to use the lanes; however, the self checkout lanes are directly adjacent to the 15 Items or Less lane. Therefore, one of average intelligence would logically conclude that if having a cart overflowing with groceries negates your ability to utilize the 15 Items or Less lane, then it's probably really frickin' stupid to use the self checkout lane. That's why I concluded the couple using the self checkout lane were likely of subnormal intelligence. I fully expected to see something like "Get a brain, morans!" or "I want my country back" or "Palin 2012" written on the front of their t-shirts. Instead, each was wearing an "I'm with stupid" shirt. Of course... I should have guessed!

Anyway, I was going to post a few pictures of Claire monkeying around at the zoo, but I'm too tired and pissed off to do so. Instead, I leave you with some Demetri Martin comedy that is definitely not for morans...