So, I just got back from the grocery store a little bit ago.  I went to pick up some odds & ends - milk, cat litter, baby food, soda.  You know, the kinds of things that, in retrospect, you should have bought more of last time you really “went to the grocery store”.  But you didn’t, so you have to go back 2 days later.

Anyway, I had too much to go to the single express checkout line, so I go to the single normal checkout line.  The woman ahead of me and her male companion (husband? boyfriend?) had 2 carts stuffed with hair care products, diapers, and other miscellaneous things. The cashier was on the second cart, so I went ahead and got in line. The cashier was finishing up, and then the woman dropped a stack of coupons in front of the cashier, who started scanning them.

After a few coupons, I started counting, as it was clear this was going to take a while, and I had nowhere else to go.  Kind of like what I used to do as a kid when, in my parents car, we were stuck at a railroad crossing, and I started counting the railcars, just to see how long the train really was.

Anyhow, I kept counting.  I know I missed a few, and the cashier’s scanning stalled a few times (excess coupons, ones that had to be entered manually, etc), but finally, after a second pile, the cashier was done.  175+ coupons.  Seriously.  I missed at least a dozen, so the total might have actually been 200.  According to the woman, she had bought 50 packages of diapers.  I saw maybe half a dozen or dozen large containers of laundry detergent.  And lots, lots more.  There must have been a coupon for every item, except, maybe, the 4 cookies the woman purchased, probably to eat while she was stuffing the carts. (And to finish, perhaps, while loading the car, which I saw them still doing as I walked to my car.)

I don’t know about this whole shopping thing.  It seems like every time I venture out, some incredibly long transaction happens right in front of me.  (Like the time at Target when a woman bought a ton of stuff, including a window air conditioner, only to be denied a new Target card.  And then her existing credit card got denied, too.  But that’s another story…)