I’ve started going to the grocery store on my day off, first thing in the morning. I’ve found it most pleasant, pulling into a two-thirds empty parking lot, plenty of two-tiered shopping carts (my fave because I’m that age where I have a favorite shopping cart), and not deserted but agreeably populated with unaggressive people. Well, except for all the stock people who couldn’t care less about being in your way.

Yesterday I went slightly later than I usually do and the stockers were in clusters – three of them in the back of the dairy aisle with towering carts, two of them in the soda aisle. The candy aisle looked like Willy Wonka’s warehouse, boxes upon boxes of candy spilling over the sides lining both sides of the aisle and four stockers buzzing around like ants in an anthill.

All I wanted was a bag of licorice. Just one. I tentatively pushed my cart in and left it next to a row of boxes to squeeze my way to the Twizzlers. They were on sale! Two for $8, so I bought two. (Yeah, $4 a bag is a deal, nowadays.)

A couple of weeks ago I was at the self-checkout scanning my items. I placed a bag of red bell peppers on the scale and punched in the PLU code. The attendant walked by and then doubled back and said, “wait, that’s not right.”  Um, excuse me? She swiped her employee card and scrolled down to my order and again said, “that’s not right.”

I told her it was right, that I put in this PLU code that was on the sticker ON the peppers. So she deleted it and put it in herself and boom! Exactly the same price that I got for putting in the correct number. Instead of apologizing for acting like I was trying to steal, she simply said, “huh. They must have changed it.” I should have told her there were, and always have been, TWO kinds of red peppers and they’re always priced differently. Asshole.

Later that same day, I went to Kohl’s to pick up an order. My Kohl’s has changed the layout to be all self-checkout and then there’s a dedicated line for staffed registers that used to be only customer service. As I had also picked up three tank tops that were on sale, I waited on the line for a staffed register. This queue is now just like TJMaxx – the partitioned queue lined with shelves and racks of extras to entice you to spend more money on shit you hadn’t even thought about.

When I finally stepped up to the register with my tank tops and my QR code for my pickup items, she paused and asked me if I was paying with cash or card. I said card. She said, “okay, you can do one of two things.

Her: You can go over to self-checkout to pay for those items while I get your pickup order, that way you can just come back over when you’re done and grab your bag. Or you can just pay here… if you want….

Me: I don’t understand. I can’t pay for these things here?

Her: Sure. You can do that.

Me: Then that’s what I want to do.

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? She literally suggested to me, after I waited twenty minutes in line, to go over there and check myself out while she got my pickup order. Because, she said, it might be easier. For whom?

At that moment another employee walked up and said, “I’ll get the order.” She rung me up and he was back with my bag before she was done adding the discounts in that I didn’t want to struggle with in self-checkout. I’m going to give her the grace of lacking common sense.

Before we wrap things up here, I’d like to give an honorable mention to all those stores that force their employees to ask you to “open a credit card and save 10% on your order today,” or ask for your phone number, or insist you should have a rewards account.

Like Ulta: went there to buy foundation. At the checkout, the girl asked for my phone number. I declined to give it. She asked if I had a rewards account. I didn’t. Would I like to have one? No, thank you. Well, do you know anyone who does have one? (Presumably to give them the rewards points.) FFS, can I just buy the damn foundation? By now, I was getting pissed. Besides, aren’t they teaching young women that “no” means no? (The correct answer is yes, yes they are. Except in retail.)

Our new Tractor Supply in town: every time I go to pay they ask for my phone number. And then they look at you like you literally said “fuck you”  when you said you don’t give that number out.

I feel like everything is an aggravation anymore. I mean, life used to be simpler, didn’t it? Or, am I just old and crotchety?