I have a family Christmas gathering tonight and was placed in charge of bringing plates and cups. No big deal, I assumed it would only take a few minutes to get in and out of the grocery store. You know what they say about assumptions.

I don’t know why but I always seem to pick the wrong lines. There were only two lines.
In one line, the express lane, was a gal we will call Coupon Lady.
Coupon Lady had way to many items for the express lane and way to many coupons and questions. The other line had only one lady with a shit load of groceries, we will call her Rosarita. After watching Coupon Lady and the three or four irritated people stacked behind her, I chose Rosaritas line and her two carts chock full of groceries.

As Rosarita unloaded one of her carts onto the check out counter I kept an eye on Coupon Lady to see if my choice of lines was the correct maneuver. Coupon Lady was still in in front of the checker scrolling through her receipt making sure the evil young checker had not screwed her out of the coupon deal of the century, Rosarita was flying along, halfway through the second cart it was looking as though my decision to bypass Coupon Lady and the visibly upset line of customers behind her was a wise move indeed.

Then it happened, Rosarita does not speak english and wants to pay with an EBT card, my young check out gal was unable to understand that Rosarita wants to use all of the money on the EBT card and whatever is left she will pay in cash, I figured that out after a store interpreter showed up after about a five minute wait to get Rosarita and her issues worked out. Apparently Rosaritas food stamp card belongs to her daughter, the same daughter who forgot to give her the pin number, after two phone calls to the daughter the pin number was retrieved and Rosarita was no longer hampering my escape from the longest check out line I have ever been in. Coupon Lady and her followers were long gone, a new line of people who were unfamiliar were skipping on through the express lane. I was irritated…and hungry.

I left the parking lot of the grocery store and headed for Subway Sandwich, that should be a quick in and out and at this time of day usually nobody is there. The parking lot had a few cars but not bad, I pulled into a stall at about the same time a small SUV pulled in. The doors to the SUV flew open and a herd of small children ran to the door of the Subway, the driver stepped out and headed for the door trying to catch up to her brood that had already infiltrated Subway. We will call her Maria.

I couldn’t go in, I jumped back in my truck and left Subway vowing that next time, the wife will be buying the plates and cups.