I hate it when you’re waiting in line at the store and the people ahead of you are taking their sweet time.  I was directly in line at a department store checkout with two open registers: the customer at one register was signing up for the store credit card and the other was waiting on a price check.  I was standing there for at least five minutes before another clerk came over and opened a third register… just as the price check customer was finished.

I don’t think people understand how these lines/queues need to operate.  Most stores are line anarchy and you can go to any register even if some are open and others are not.  Usually you’ll see a person checking out with an entire basket full of things and and some guy with a whole bunch of things and you’ll skip that register in favor of another with only one person that’s just starting to pay.  It seems like this is the better choice but as soon as you get there the person with the cart of stuff has made their way through and is leaving and the person paying at your register has decided that they would like to pay by check.  Seriously, who uses checks at the store?  Checks alone are starting to become an antiquated concept as it is so why are they still being used to buy $50 of stuff at Target?  It isn’t the elderly necessarily, either–I see people that have to be in their thirties doing this too.  I went several years without writing a check and yet these people seem to refuse to give up the skills they learned in 5th grade life skills class.  Have these people not heard of debit cards?  Obviously they have a checking account if they are writing a check so why on Earth would they not get a debit card instead?  Sure, there might be fees, but you still have to order checks when you run out.

Meanwhile, the guy writing the check is still trying to write down “fifty-four dollars and ninety-nine cents” on his stupid little piece of paper and the guy with all the stuff is paying and already about to leave.  By the time you get to the clerk the other register is already on its third guy.

Even worse is when you get stuck behind  some kid paying for something in pennies.  The only place that pennies exist anymore is in the pockets of kids that don’t bother counting out the exact change until they’re at the checkout line waiting to buy a pack of Pokémon trading cards.