Panic, Aisle 16

And I am not prone to panic, much less in the grocery store.

I had already fought through the problem of forgetting most of our shopping bags at home. In Austin, stores are not allowed to give customers plastic bags to tote home their purchases - you bring your own. Before I left the house I threw our bags into the back of my car, then went back in to get a jacket and iPod and headphones, of course. My wife asked me then to take her car and fill it with gas on the way. Sure, piece of cake. So we traded keys and I was off - bags still in my car and me in hers. Oh well.

I have an emergency plan when this happens, and it does often. Go into the produce area and nick an empty box or two. Luckily somebody had just stocked a lot of bananas so there were some sturdy big empty boxes, and I got one. This in addition to a stray I found in her car were all I could find.

This was a large shopping trip - the buggy was full. The store was full, of people. Lines were long at checkout. But luckily I saw a very short line and got in it - somebody in a Rascal, a motorized cart for disabled shoppers but are used by able-shoppers a lot. He had quite a few items too. Shortly the girl began checking my purchases. I went and starting putting items in my box. About halfway through I went back to slide my credit card to pay - the girl still swiping items over the scanner - and I looked up at her aisle light over the register - and it said "10 items or fewer". I gasped! Oh no, and said "10 items or fewer! Oh no!" She looked at me, realized my panic, and said - Wait! I just turned that light on. You are my last customer before this is an Express Lane.

Relief washed over me. But the guy who walked up to get in line a moment later gave me a long stern disapproving look.

PS nothing says don't talk to me in the store like someone wearing headphones.