the line

It's a rainy and hungover Saturday. The kind where I would be sleeping all day if it hadn't been for the loud parade blaring outside my window forcing me to wake from my slumber. I probably would never have attempted to leave my apartment if it hadn't been for the surging nausea that was pounding in my head and making my body scream "wahhh wahhh". But it was time. I was going to get dressed and trek all the way across 2nd avenue to the grocery store for the ginger ale quick fix.

When I got to the store, it was actually pretty packed. Who knew how many people did their grocery shopping on Saturdays? At any rate, I did a fast swoop of the store; grabbed the ginger ale remedy and a couple other key items and b-lined for the check out line. All of which were pretty long.

This is the point where you never know if you're going to make the right or wrong decision. With one bad judgement call you could end up in grocery purgatory. Check-out 6 has 5 people in line with few items...Hmmm so does check-out 5 but there is an old lady at the end of it..she could be slow. I see her mouthing to her daughter, "Do you want some ice cream?...No..ice creeeaamm." I ended up going with check out 5 which could've been a very bad call but in this case was a great one. While my line sped by; check-out 6 hasn't moved an inch. A red headed woman in her early 30s is trying to validate a coupon for $20 worth of weight watchers items. "Sorry, mam...I need to get my manager." I can feel the tension rising as the shoppers in line sigh, huff, and shift their weight from one foot to the next. By the time I'm swiping my card through the machine, 3 people have come to help in the situation. "No! I should be getting 5 dollars back! I have $20 worth of product. Look here...$3.69..." Now I hear a disgruntled man from the back of the line (mind you I was about to get on line behind him) shout, "Are you serious!? C'mon Lady!" The red headed woman fires back "Yes Im serious. I want my $5 dollars off of food." I almost wanted to see them break out into a full on super market brawl. I smirk at the grocery clerk as a sign my receipt and grab my bags. Ohh...autumn in New York...in the middle of recession. And I'm sure that just a preview. Well at least I fixed my nausea.