It Was Bizzaro World At the Supermarket Check-out Line

The other day something odd happened that never in a million years would I imagine was possible. It involved a whole new crazy way to speed your way through your local supermarket’s checkout line.

The excitement started around lunch hour. I was pushing my shopping cart toward the supermarket’s checkout line #9. Suddenly, out of nowhere, with his shopping cart heading on the total opposite side of #9, came a distinguished-looking elderly gentleman wearing a suit and tie as if dressed for success.

I asked myself: “How in the world did this fellow wind up back there with his shopping cart by the store window?” From his backward angle, #9 might have looked to him like #6, as in the comic book Bizarro World where everything is backwards, upside down and inside out. Which could apply to the oddity of what this person was going through on this particular day.

My amazed expression might have inspired him to say when he moved closer to me: “Sorry, sir. I guess I got mixed up. I wasn’t supposed to be checking out this way. Was I?” I can only surmise that this man wasn’t accustomed to going grocery shopping. That he was too busy for such chores and had underlings do it for him. Or if he was married, his spouse usually made the supermarket run.

The way this elegant gentleman who I nicknamed Dapper Dan was outfitted suggested he might be the chairman emeritus for the board of directors at some multinational corporation. He was taking time out from his elevated rank to mingle at lunch hour with us little hoi polloi proletarian folks.

I watched this gentleman struggle to grab food items from his shopping cart onto the checkout counter. The cashier, who had looked bored stiff before, now seemed bemused by what she saw. She too maybe had never faced a shopper approaching her in the opposite direction.

Once Dan finally retrieved his groceries from the cart, he struggled to find his wallet in his pants pocket. That was followed by more difficulty retrieving his credit card to pay the grocery bill. With all the confusion this fellow was experiencing at line #9, based on my own problems working unfamiliar machines, it could have been much worse for him. Like trying for the first time how to negotiate the self-service checkout terminal.

I told myself to “show some mercy toward this guy. He’s having a rough day. Everybody has one. Right?”

The fact he looked so unsettled made me perish the thought that he had invented some tricky, faster way to finish his food shopping. Meaning, was he deliberately cheating to avoid having to wait in line?

Leaving the store, I saw Dan out in the parking lot. He was having trouble jiggling his car keys to open the trunk but he finally got it open. Then he was struggling to lift his bags into the car and I offered to help, but he said he had it under control. But he thanked me for my offer.

“No problem,” I said, and meant it because I could almost admire what Mr. Dan had achieved in the store. As he was driving out of the parking lot, he tooted his horn at me, I hope in appreciation for offering to assist him and not for some nasty reason like he was frustrated by everything and everyone, which he would have every right to feel.

Of course, Dan wasn’t the only one where not everything was going honky-dory. As I started to put my paper shopping bags in the car, the bags split open and food items spilled out. I could definitely relate to what Dan had been going through.

Witnessing that gentleman’s shopping struggles somehow reminded me of Ralph Kramden on the old 1950s Honeymooners TV sitcom who when exasperated with his wife would exclaim “Bang, zoom! To the Moon, Alice!” And Alice would retaliate with some sassy, humorous comeback line that shut Ralph up.

Yes, traveling to the moon might be challenging. But perhaps what might be even more daunting for Mr. Dan than going almost 239,000 miles to that world was his oddball ingenious way, even if it wasn’t his intention, to avoid all lines to quickly move through the #9 checkout line. Not to sound cheeky or trendy, but probably, someday, AI will do it all for him.

 

Eric Green is a former newspaper reporter and ESL teacher. His news stories, essays, and short stories have been published widely, including in the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Oddball Magazine, and Adelaide Literary Magazine. One of his latest short stories, “The Comic Who Stopped Joking Around,” was published by the Hudson Valley (New York) Writers Guild.