as my mom might say, it's time to change "mah-kits"

I need a few grocery items.  

Agata is always my first choice but some things they just don’t carry.  So I go to D’Agostino. While it is surprisingly busy for a mid-afternoon on a Thursday,  the store is adequately staffed to service about  two or three people.  

First, they don’t have Chocolate VitaTops, only something called Cran-Bran.  They also don’t have the black and white Entenmann's cookies I’ve come to buy.  And the frozen Healthy Choice meals, good on occasion, are also absent from their shelves. 

I find three other items I've come in for, and go to check out.  Only three cashiers are open, despite the crowded store.  It looks like most of the shoppers have ten or fewer items, as the Express line is very long. The regular line has only one shopper in it, so I go over to that one. Yes, the shopper has quite a few things, but how long can that take? Surely, less time than it would take to get through ten people with only a few items.

The cashier is ringing up the shopper’s items when she comes to a small bag of Boston lettuce.  It prices out to an amount that seems too high. There is some debate then between the shopper and the cashier and after some deliberation they conclude that the lettuce is not worth the price.  A manager is called over, because only a manager has the key to the register.  She opens it and the lettuce is deleted from the order.

I stand and wait while all the people in the express line breeze through, and new ones are lining up.

The cashier is back to ringing up the shopper’s items, and finally finishes. “$148.42.” “Oh, I’m sorry," says the shopper.  “I only have $100!”  

“ARE YOU FU**ING KIDDING ME?  YOU'RE NOT JUST OFF BY A FEW CENTS!!  YOU OVERBOUGHT BY ALMOST 50%?”  I want to scream these things at the shopper but don’t, though I am sure they are communicated through my facial expressions and body language.

Now the shopper begins the process of reconsidering her many purchases and deciding which items she will keep and which need to be forfeited.  This is agonizing, and I don’t even have my phone with me or I’d be playing Words With Friends.  Again, the manager with the key is called back over.

I want to cry.

Finally, the transaction is completed.  The cashier must now bag the order.  There are no baggers today.  She completes the process and then the shopper finds $10 in her pocket and decides to get a roasted chicken.  Now the shopper has to fill out multiple address forms (one for each bag, of which there are many) because the order is being delivered.  Of course.

I almost feel like this could be an SNL skit, though it wouldn’t be funny.

I come home exhausted from the ordeal.  A 10- minute trip to the grocery store turns into 45.  

Next time? Express line.  And it won’t be at D’Agostino.