_{images@businessweek.com}

Dear Woman in Front of me in the Check Out Line at Giant Eagle:

First of all, I take all responsibility for THE INCIDENT.  We were, after all, in the “self-service” line.  I should have understood that “self service” was to be taken literally as “serving your self.”  I chose this particular line because the other lines with real live clerks were snaking across the supermarket, and I’m not one of those people that goes into the “12 Items or Less” line with more than 12 items.  I’m a “rule follower” that way.

The person in front of you dispatched their items quite quickly.  So quickly I don’t remember what they bought.  Waiting patiently, I perused the contents of your shopping cart, wondering what they said about your life.  It appeared that you eat LOTS of Yoplait yoghurt and Stouffers macaroni and cheese.  I smiled to myself, imagining you as a young single working gal, eating yogurt for breakfast and lunch and coming home after a hard day of work, kicking off your high heels, and heating up some mac and cheese.  I wondered if you cooked at all.  I thought about how pretty you looked, and wondered about what you did for a living.

By this time, you had pulled out your shopper’s card and scanned it into the machine.  The female electronic voice welcomed you to Giant Eagle and invited you to scan your first item.

You chose the yoghurt first.  There must have been something mesmerizing about that mellifluous electronic voice chanting “nine-tee nine cents,” because you seemed under a spell as you slowly picked up each individual cone of yoghurt and sloooooowly scanned it.  Ten yoghurts.  Twenty.  Slowly indulging in each sing-song incantation of its price.  I wondered what you did with all that yoghurt—take a bath in it?

I looked down and noticed my frozen corn was beginning to melt.  But you only had the mac and cheese left, so I looked at the tabloids to see what Brad and Angelina were up to.

Wait.  Your cart was still half full, but you are pulling out your credit card and swiping it.  Waiting for your girlfriend to tell you to sign on the key pad.  Waiting for your receipts and coupons.

Sweat began dripping off my corn, making little plopping drops on my winter boots.  Slowly, you start the process all over again.  Scanning your shopper’s card.  A box of mac and cheese, “two for-tee five.”  Lovingly scanning it, slowly watching it move down its conveyor belt, where it met the waiting yoghurt.  Repeating the process over and over again.  Ending with a bottle of “five nine-tee nine” Sangria.

The light over the scanner begins blinking, waiting for a real live clerk to come by and verify that you are old enough to buy rot-got wine.  You can’t finish the process until the live clerk drops by.  You wander about the aisle, perhaps daydreaming about the week of yoghurt and cheesy mac awaiting you.  Maybe dreaming of the millions you will make with your stocks in corporate factory dairies.  Slowly, as if reaching underwater, you find the paper bags under the counter and consider packing your groceries.  There must be a reason why this decision takes so long—maybe you were contemplating the costs and benefits of paper versus plastic?

I am ready to pack your groceries for you, but the real live clerk appears and approves your age, without checking ID.  Slowly, deliberately, you search for the coupons that were spewed out of the machine on your first purchase, and feed them into the machine.  In incremental jabbing movements, you punch the keypad and scan your credit card.  Your electronic ladylove tells you to sign the pad, and dutifully, lovingly, you sign, collect your receipt, and read it to see how much you saved on your second purchase of the day.  Slowly, you begin packing your yoghurt into the paper bag.  Each plastic cone is placed with precision, and I wonder if you are creating a breathtaking sculpture inside the bag.

I am trying my best not to elbow my way to the end of the conveyor belt, push you aside, and pack all of your groceries myself.  Instead, I swipe my shopper’s card and begin scanning my groceries.  Apparently the arrival of my groceries on the conveyor belt intermingling with your yoghurt and cheesy mac was too much for you, and you looked helplessly at the real live clerk that supervises the self-service line.  She admonishes me for creating AN INCIDENT.

“M’am, you have to wait until she has finished packing her things.  You need to learn to be patient, life is too short.”

Being given advice by the real live clerk was too much for me.   “I HAVE been patient,” I snarled.  “I’ve been patient to the tune of fifteen minutes.”  The real live clerk looks at me as if I’m a royal jerk, and yoghurt girl smiles at her accomplice in self-congratulation.

The Mac and Cheese muncher gives me a doleful look, and continues her meticulous packing of yoghurt and cheesy mac, arranging them oh-so-carefully in the bags.  I stand, staring, and you give me an angry eye in return.  Finally you finish your grocery object d’arte, and I am allowed to scan my items.

Now enraged, a running commentary begins in my head about passive-aggressive young people and their lack of consideration for others.  And then I get it.  It’s entirely my fault.  I am just not patient enough, and didn’t understand the need to have a zen-like relationship with grocery items.  In time, I'm sure I can use the self-service line as a spiritual meditation.

Thank you, Woman and Real Live Clerk, for helping me onward on my spiritual journey.