How Many is Too Many??

Now there is a loaded question. How many is too many? Are we talking about martinis at a business lunch because then in this day and age the answer might well be one. On the other hand, if we were talking about peanuts at a baseball game, there probably is no correct answer provided that you don't get ill in the car on the way home.

However, in this instance I am asking about a very specific instance. When you are in the express check-out line at the grocery store, how many items over the limit is too many for the person in front of you to have? Is it one, or two or just how many? I must admit never having given too much thought to this question until this past Sunday morning when I got into that express check-out line with three items in my cart, well below the limit of ten items or less and I saw not just ten but 13 items in the basket of the elderly woman in front of me who was laying her items onto the conveyor belt while waiting for the customer in front of her to finish checking out. Then, to add insult to injury, a younger woman (probably her daughter or niece) came up to the check-out line, stepped in front of me to join the elderly woman and added three more items to the pile on the conveyor belt. So now instead of being just three items over the limit, she was six.

I was of course too polite to point out their transgression, since I am no longer a member of the National Express Check-out Line Limit Enforcement Force. I resigned several years ago after a very nasty confrontation with a shopper turned violent. She resisted apprehension after I told her that her excuse of being parked illegally in a handicapped parking space did not give her the right to use the express check-out line when she had more than twice the amount of items allowed, even if it meant she might get a $300 parking ticket. Anyway, since I no longer have check-out line enforcement powers, I couldn't say or do anything to the elderly woman and her younger counterpart in front of me who were 60% above the authorized limit of items.

Frustrated, I searched for an appropriate course of action to take and finally it hit me. As the lovely young checker scanned the first item above the limit of ten, I called out firmly, "Eleven!". As she scanned the next item, I increased my level of volume slightly and said "Twelve!". At this point, the checker leaned over and said to me that she was sorry, but once the customer had placed the items on the conveyor belt, there was nothing she could do about it. I told her it wasn't her fault and not to worry about it. Then as she scanned the next item, I called out even more loudly, "Thirteen!" and the process continued with "Fourteen, Fifteen and Sixteen" when finally all of the items had been scanned.

In a perfect world, the objects of my obvious scorn would have been embarrassed by the attention I was drawing to their transgression. But they weren't. However, I will not be deterred by this. In the future, should someone in the express check-out line in front of me be more than one item over the limit, I will repeat this process. I encourage all of you who are not members of an enforcement agency able to take action against the transgressors to use this same method to embarrass them. Perhaps someday if we all take aggressive action, we can make express check-out lines safe for all.