Minor Post-Frustration Venting

Crowded H-E-B, Oltorf and Congress, 5pm yesterday.
I choose the only “20 Items or Less” line because there’s only one person in front of me, a woman in her 20’s, fairly cute. Since the other lines were longer, I’m wondering if the 20 items limit is too much work for people or if it’s an odd number to choose as a cut off, maybe most people have less than 10 or more than 20 items. I think this is the first time I’ve noticed a “20 Items or Less” line.

As I start to unload our items from the cart to the conveyor, noting that we’re safely under 20 items, I realize that she’s over the 20 item limit. Way over. It’s really easy to tell since there’s a monitor over the conveyor showing us all how many items have been scanned. It numbers them. As the total reaches into the thirties, the checkout woman pauses and asks if the rest of the items belong to the woman. She replies that they’re hers and the clerk continues to check her out, the total eventually reaching 42 items. I would’ve cut her some slack until 25, but anything over that, there’s one of three things going on: you’re an inconsiderate asshole, you can’t read, or you can’t count. Instead of saying something, which I should’ve done, I kept quiet and vented to The Boy on the way out to the car, pointing out that there’s a reason why he needs to learn how to count, read, and not be a jerk.

What would you have done? Public humiliation? Snide comment? Death penalty?

Update: Apparently, Stepan had a similar experience a few hours before at one of them newfangled self-checkout H-E-Bs.

[tags]heb, checkout, grocery, rant[/tags]