There must come a time in our lives where the price of fruit becomes so meaningful it stops traffic, or at least the flow of traffic in the express checkout lane at Safeway.
This morning, rushing to meet up with Brian at Windy Hill, I made a quick trip to Safeway to get Wendy some Popsicles for her sore throat. This can't take long, I thought. I raced into Safeway, grabbed the Popsicle box that didn't have lime Popsicles (Wendy hates lime Popsicles) and made my way to the express checkout lane. In front of me was a lady buying some apples...I could hear her say, "$2.99 a pound?...But, the display said they were only $1.99 a pound..." or something to that effect.
"Price check for Check Out 1...something, something, apples, blah, blah, blah..."
I have to hand it to the checker...he was one cool dude...way cooler than me in this situation. He then called in two more checkers as the "express lane" was now 12 deep due to this lady's fixation with the price of apples. Sure enough, the price came back confirmed at $2.99 a pound for the apples.
"I don't want them, then," the lady said...
What was more amazing was the gridlock this lady caused due to her unwillingness to pay $1 more for a pound of apples...one bloody dollar! Twelve people deep in the express checkout resulted in two, TWO, people being called off break to get traffic flowing again.
The lady walked out of Safeway...mission accomplished!
Fast forward to this evening...
I am in the Safeway express checkout lane...again...buying some beer, Grape Nuts, and instant oatmeal. I am third in line, and guess what? Seriously, take a guess! Another lady was debating the price of fruit with the checkout guy. This time though the fruit de jour was raspberries and blackberries. Apparently, there was confusion whether blackberries had the same discount price as raspberries. NOPE! Blackberries were full price today, which put this lady into a complete tailspin. All I could do was stand in line and smile, realizing I have experienced something few humans experience...two completely different ladies debating the price of fruit in the express checkout lane at Safeway on the same day.