Another Job I'll Never Have...

I admit it.

I could never be a police officer.

It's not that I couldn't deal with all the crime and other stuff our men and women in blue have to deal with on a daily basis. I share much of that crap with them in the performance of my job duties. They deal with drunks...so do I. Auto accidents? Ditto. No...I couldn't be a cop because I would shoot people just for being stupid. I wouldn't make it past the first day of probation. I give props to all the police officers who have infinitely more self-control than I do.

It turns out I could not be a grocery checker either. Again...it's the public stupidity issue. I was at Safeway today, grabbing something quick to take home and feed the family. BBQ some chicken and corn on the cob, some steak fries and all would be good. Pick up some bread since we were out, and some other things that looked good as I zoomed by with my cart. Check the item count...cool....12. Head to the "Express Lane". Now, notice I put Express Lane in quotes. Safeway does NOTHING in an express mode. But as I wheel my cart up to the belt to unload my cart, I notice there's no room on it because this moron in front of me has unloaded a *full * cart of items onto it. It appeared he was buying enough to feed the 143 Airborne Regiment at Camp Parks. The glares and stares from the people in other lines, and behind me were growing more acidic with each item he unloaded. I cleared my throat, and kind of made the "look up there at the '15 Items or Less' sign you idiot", but he didn't catch the clue. I felt like telling him "What....didn't Bert and Ernie get to 15 when they were counting today on Sesame Street", but instead I just mentioned to him that he was in the Express Lane...15 or fewer items.

He just shrugged his shoulders and inanely said "oops...my bad".

Now it took all that I could humanly muster not to punch the stupid out of this guy, but then he did something that made everyone around us gasp in disbelief.

He told the clerk at our register "Ooops...forgot the Pepsi....be right back!" And with that he left the line, ran to the back of the store and returned with two large 12-packs under each arm. The clerk on the register next to us commented to the guy that he was holding up the "Express Lane", and he should have been told to take all his stuff to another register. He again just shrugged his shoulders and rummaged through his wallet for his ATM card. Ordinarily I wouldn't have made much out of it, but the store was very busy, and there were 4 or 5 people waiting in each open register line. An older lady in the next line made a comment about how rude and inconsiderate he was being, as did a guy in the opposite line, although his comments included the word asshole and other various obscenities. The dude looks at me for some type of support or sympathy, and I just looked at him, smiled slightly and told him he was an idiot.

I think he realized just how pissed everyone around him was getting, because in his haste to get out of there, he botched his attempt at entering his PIN twice. What a yutz....

Nope. I won't be submitting my application to Safeway any time soon. I'll stick with being a paramedic. At least I get to stick needles into people.