Express Lane

I’m standing in the “Twelve Items or Less” line at Stop and Shop. I’m buying a jar of pasta sauce for tonight’s dinner and a quarter of a pound of sliced turkey for my daughter’s lunch tomorrow. I watch the man in front of me pay his bill. The cashier hands him his change and his receipt. Without looking at it, he stuffs the whole handful — bills, coins, and receipt — into his jacket pocket, picks up his bag of groceries, and heads for the door.

I take an instant dislike to the man. How can he so carelessly stuff all of that in his pocket? He hasn’t checked his receipt to make sure it’s correct. He hasn’t put his money away in his wallet, where it belongs. In the next second, I dislike myself even more. Why do I care?  What difference does it make if this stranger shoves his change into his pocket and walks out?

The cashier rings up my order and gives me my total. Five dollars and ninety-four cents.  I look in my wallet and see that I have two twenties, a five, and a one. If I give the five and the one to the cashier, he’ll give me back six cents and I can get out of here quickly. But then I won’t have any small bills when my kids ask me for snack money. So I give the cashier one of the twenties instead. My change is now fourteen dollars and six cents. He hands it to me, along with my receipt, and starts in on the next customer’s order.

I move to the end of the counter and check the receipt. It looks fine, so I put it in the pocket of my bag where I always put receipts. It’s the same pocket where I always put my keys.  This means that when I get home and put my keys away, I’ll see the receipt. That will remind me to take it out of my bag and file it with my other receipts.

Now I look at my change. It’s the right amount, but I’m filled with dismay when I see it.  The bills are all messed up. Some of them are upside down. Some of them are backwards. I can’t tolerate this. I put the six cents in the zippered pocket of my wallet and then begin to rearrange the bills so they’re all facing the same way and the ones are on top of the ten. I open the part of my wallet where the bills go and see that I still have a twenty and a five and a one in there. This means that I can’t simply put the ten and the four ones that are my change into the wallet all at once, because then there will be a twenty, followed by a five, followed by a one, followed by a ten, followed by four ones. This feels unbearable to me. So first I put the ten in the wallet in between the twenty and the five, and then I put the four ones in the wallet on top of the one that’s already in there.  

As I’m doing all of this, I’m painfully aware of how long it’s taking me. This is supposed to be the express lane. The customer who was after me has already paid and left, and now the customer who was after her is paying. I imagine that people are staring at me and my face flushes. I berate myself: “Why didn’t you just stuff it all in your pocket and then organize it when you got to the car?”

I know this was an option and there are times when I would have been able to do it. But this has been a long and difficult day (which is why I’m at the grocery store right at dinner time in the first place), and I don’t have it in me to wait until I get to my car, no matter how embarrassing it is to know that people are watching me behave this way. I need to have order RIGHT NOW. Despite my self-consciousness, now that the bills are all facing the same way and lined up correctly, I feel calm and soothed. I put my wallet away in my bag, pick up my groceries, and walk out of the store.