The waiting game

Of all my numerous character flaws, I think my total lack of patience is the absolute worst. I have always had this problem. When I was a little kid, this led to a lot of exasperation on the part of my mother, who was always yelling at me, “You expect to get exactly what you want exactly when you want it!”

My response, even at the age of 7, was invariably something like, “Yeah? And what the hell is wrong with that?”

Fact is, I am absolutely terrible at waiting for things – for ANYTHING. I have an incredibly overdeveloped sense of anticipation, which, depending upon whether the upcoming event is good or bad, transforms me into either a) a distracted, day-dreaming, hyper-excitable nutcase, or b) an immobilized lump of dread. And so, in the interest of not having my ability to function compromised for weeks at a time just because something is going to happen, the obvious solution is to make whatever it is happen as soon as possible.

Over the years, I’ve done my best to tone down the more obnoxious aspects of my impatience, usually by tricking my brain into believing that the Anticipated Thing is Not Really Real. (In the months leading up to my wedding, people were always remarking on what a laid-back bride I was, never realizing that inside, my anticipation-happy brain was shrieking, “Wedding? What wedding? OMFG are we getting married?!!!” while my other, anticipation-hampering brain shouted, “No! Nothing is happening! Go back to sleep!” and then whacked brain #1 in the face with a shovel.) But despite my best efforts, I still have some… well, issues. I am that person who flees from the subway and walks 20 extra blocks because she can’t stand to wait on the delayed train. I’ll leave a store without making any of my intended purchases if the line is too long. And God help you if you are one of those people who takes a long time with food preparation, because if you are cutting an onion in my presence, I will make a noise like a strangled cat and then snatch it from you and dice it up in 5 seconds like a woman possessed.

For all my best efforts, I simply cannot abide a slow onion-chopper.

Unfortunately, there are some times when the stars align just so and I find myself in one of those places where endless waiting is a certainty – and so it was that I ended up buying groceries in our local supermarket on Sunday morning.

Sunday mornings at the supermarket are bad. Sunday mornings are rife with neighborhood matriarchs, tooling around the aisles post-church, filling their shopping carts to the brim with family-sized packs of chicken cutlets, clogging the checkout lines while they sift through their envelopes full of coupons. Sunday mornings require a PLAN.

See, some checkout lines move faster than others. And as the world’s most impatient person, I have long since discovered that the following elements in any combination will expedite the checkout process:

Element #1: Baskets, not carts.
People who carry baskets in the grocery store want nothing more than to grab their items and go, before their bicep muscles give out. They do not linger.

Element #2: Grizzled old men.
These guys are not at the grocery store to socialize. They are not here for chit-chat with the clerk or idle browsing in the aisles. They want only to buy their marmite and toilet paper with the least possible amount of human interaction, and they zoom through the checkout with little more than a series of grunts and the brief flash of a wallet.

Element #3: Young male checkout clerks (YMCCs).
Much like the grizzled old men, the YMCC is not about the chit-chat. He does not offer commentary on the items coming down the conveyor. He will not ask you questions about your preferred brand of tuna or tell you which sort of food his cat likes best. AND, his nimble young hands are quick at bagging groceries.

So on Sunday morning, as I scanned the overflowing checkout lines, I was delighted to spot the following in Line 5: A line consisting of 4 old men, 3 of them holding baskets, and with a 15 year-old boy running the register.

Yes! I thought, as I zoomed into the line and deposited my few items on the counter.
Yes! I thought again, as two gentlemen in front of me flew through the line without so much as a whisper.
YES! I nearly shouted as the man directly ahead of me paid in cash and speed-walked out of the store.
And it was only as my own groceries started to trundle down the belt that I took another look at what I was buying and thought, Oh no.

Because while my impatience makes waiting in line at the grocery store extremely irritating, watching a hapless teenager’s face get progressively redder as he scans a bag of chips, a bar of chocolate, a pint of ice cream, a box of Hostess cupcakes, and – finally – a box of tampons?

Well, that’s just painful.

Especially when I got home and realized that in addition to having publicly purchased a collection of items which could be sold all together in a gift pack with a title like “The Menstruating Woman’s Basket O’ Fun”, AND embarrassing the crap out of a 15 year-old boy, I had also unwittingly bought scented tampons. Thus presenting the impression that not only does having one’s period cause uncontrollable snack food cravings, but a smelly vagina as well.

I suppose there’s a lesson to be learned here about the virtues of patience, but all I can think is that if that checkout clerk turns out to be gay, it will probably be at least 40% my fault.