Fun at the Grocery Store

When the kids all are in school one day I now know what I can do with my time.  I can work the check-out lane at my local grocery store.  Clearly there is a shortage of checkers because every time I go to the grocery store the line is long for the two lone checkers that are at work that day.  Luckily there is usually a self check-out lane or two available for me to use, but with a family of 6 even our "quick trip to pick up the essentials" results in at least three bags of groceries.

I'm not trying to brag here, but I have gotten really efficient at ringing up our things.  So, for a bit of sport yesterday I decided to see how fast I could go compared to the line next to me.  I had always assumed that the cashier working his/her lane would be much faster than I would be, but yesterday that was not the case.  I ran our order through, bagged it, paid and got it back in the cart before the person next to me was even completely bagged.  I was surprised.  Did I mention that I had our three youngest sons with me??  I will likely let someone else ring us up the next time if they are available, but it was a fun little challenge.

I feel it is important to note here that I don't know how much of their order was produce which requires extra steps and we didn't have any yesterday (sad to admit), and they may have had several coupons which we did not have any of yesterday.  It was probably luck that I managed to find the correct angle to read the UPC on each item with little effort, but it was fun to go so fast.  I am a competitive person by nature and believe that if I had been a twin I would have been born first.  I try to push down the urge to compete most of the time or at least keep it within reasonable boundaries, but ... this seemed harmless. (I had a skiing accident recently and it is killing me that I can't ski right now because everyone else in our family is racking up feet without me!  The day my darling husband made me stay in bed was almost unbearable.)

Most people I know here in the mountains are surprised to discover my competitive spirit.  Almost as surprised as they are to find out what a true introvert I am at heart.  I work hard against my nature to become the person I should be rather than the person that I am.  There is always room for improvement, but thankfully there is also room for a little harmless fun too.  Try it yourself ... run a race against no one in particular in the self check-out lane or see just how much you can save by using coupons (another fun past-time of mine).  I figure if I have to go to the grocery store all the time I should do everything possible to make it fun.

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