Peas Off!

Well Melissa, Yes there is an Idiot Girls Action Adventure Club. I have an Official signed certficate from Laurie Notaro herself. Who happens to be my hero. She has a series of books detailing her crazy life, If you enjoy reading treat yourself to one of her books this Christmas may I suggest True Tales for the Top of the Naughty List.

True Tale from a Magnificent and Clumsy Life

Okay, maybe I had gotten too cocky; maybe I was simply just too full of myself due to my outstanding skill with ATM’s and credit card terminals. It took practice and dedication, but I can work an ATM faster than corporate executive hooked on cocaine. I guess it was this skill that made me think I could handle the self-service checkout lane, that and partially because every other open check-out lane had lines longer than the box office selling Victoria Secret Model show tickets for the extra-naked version of the show.

The local chain store had set up 3 self-serve stations on either side of a special cashier stand, which was positioned at the head like the host of a game show. I stepped up to the only unoccupied station and pressed the button that said, “START.” The machine greeted me, so far, so good, and a computerized voice instructed me to “SCAN FIRST ITEM.” I picked up the Cherry Garcia in my basket, found the UPC code and held it above the scanning screen. BLEEP! I heard as the code was scanned. “PUT ITEM IN BAG,” the machine suggested. I put the ice cream in the bag and turned and smiled at the man now in line behind me, as if to say, “WATCH ME. I WILL AMAZE YOU.” I positioned the next item, a frozen bag of peas, right over the scanner, but I couldn’t get it to BLEEP, so I did it again and again. BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP! The machine suddenly caught up, charging me for three bags of peas. “HEY!” I said as jerked the bag of peas away from the scanner, which produced another BLEEP! The man waiting in line behind me showed his amazement by putting his hands on his hips and shaking his head. “PUT ITEM IN BAG,” the machine said. “No wonder these lines take forever,” I heard the man mutter to his much younger girlfriend as he tapped his keys on his cart. “She can’t handle technology! She scanned one bag of peas FOUR TIMES. I saw her!” Somehow, I resisted the massive urge to rear up my leg and pitch a fastball bag of peas at his head. “PUT ITEM IN BAG,” the machine insisted again. Apparently pushing the CANCEL button in the area of 40 times is enough to alert the cashier, who abandoned his game show host post and came to my station. “What are you doing?” he asked me angrily. “You can’t cancel now!” “PUT ITEM IN BAG,” the machine continued, as I was thinking about my melted ice cream. He canceled the extra bags of peas. “Maybe you’d do better next time in a conventional check-out lane,” the cashier suggested. “Oh yeah? Peas off!” I replied angrily as I walked out of the store with my car keys in hand. When the man who was behind me in line came out of the store, both he and his concubine were both shocked and disgusted when they experienced the first drive-by pea-ing. But they should have known it was coming.