We were finishing up our morning running around.

Walgreens for a prescription.

WalMart for dog food.

And Safeway for produce AND A BAG OF CHIPS!

If I ever write a story about Bobfone and all his strange behaviors, one of them will be grocery store lines.  

He MUST have the best line!

He goes up and down looking for the least amount of people in line, the people with the least amount of groceries in their baskets, the fastest check-out clerk and the best bagger.

In the meantime, while he’s pushing the basket up and down, he loses the BEST line!!!!!

It happens all the time.

It used to piss me off.

Now? I just wait.

I wait because EVERY time I tell him a line to get into …..it’s the very worse one.

Something happens.

They need a price check, clerks are changing shifts, they’re out of money… I don’t know but I’m ALWAYS wrong.

So, I just wait.

He has a favorite clerk and when she’s working, I don’t care how long her line is…..that’s where we’re going.

And, how long it takes doesn’t matter, right?

We’re retired!! 

We have TIME.

Something lots of people don’t have.

We didn’t have a lot of things on the conveyer belt, maybe 25 items but, the guy behind us had ONE thing in his hand and he just looked like he needed to hurry. 
I whispered to Lobo that maybe we should let him go ahead of us.

We do that once in a while.

We’re retired.

We have TIME.

So Lobo turned to him and told him he could go ahead of us.

“Thanks” he said and he moved up in front of me.

“He’s gonna go ahead of us” I told Lobo’s favorite check out clerk.

He had ONE thing in his hand, a big jar of Cranberry Juice.

He put it up on the belt in front of our stuff.

But then………

out from a bag he had over his shoulder, he pulled out a package of Salmon, a bottle of wine, a jar of pickles, a box of crackers, a couple blocks of cheese, some chips and dip, 2 cans of tomatoes, 4 cans of beans a pound of bacon, a big Gallo Salami and a jar of Tums…I kid you not!!!!!

About half way through, I looked at Bobfone and said, as quiet as I could….
“This is a Saturday Nite Live skit!”  

My sweet man, was already laughing beyond control.

And so were the people behind him.

His favorite checker was doing her best to maintain her composure.

I expected the next happening to be that his card wouldn’t be accepted.  I had already decided to pay for it just to get him GONE.

When the  transaction was complete and the “one item shopper” was walking away, he looked at us and said, “that was really nice of you.”

NO, that was really STUPID of us!

When he was far enough away, my husband’s favorite clerk made eye contact and we said, “we thought he only had one thing.”

Laughing to the point that any composure she had was just gone, she said,  “It was like a clown car. He kept pulling things out of that bag over his shoulder.”

I wonder how often he pulls that trick…..one item in his hand and a very UNOBVIOUS bag slung over his shoulder FULL of stuff and a hurried look on his face.

Next time I’m feelin’ generous to give “cuts” in the grocery story line, I’ll look WAY more carefully than just what’s in a hand.

However, we laughed all the way home and at this point in life, the laughter is way more valuable then to hurry through the grocery line.