11.15.2005

Over Zealous Coupon Users and Card Machines

Okay, I went to Wally World (Walmart) today after work to pick up a few things and on my way out wish I had had a video camera with me...because Jeff really didn't believe me when I told him...Teresa can relate to this...it could only happen to me. He said I told him something similar the last time I ventured out into the world and waited in the dreaded line. So, the guy in front of me is just finishing his checkout and he has a gazillion coupons, which is normally fine, but of couse, the cashier tells him the peanut butter coupon and the buy three get one free canned vegetables coupons are not ringing up. So, he goes on an adventure to find them in his millions of bags stacked high in his cart...it's the typical scene...I know you can picture it. He had his two kids with him and they are all digging through the cart like african banshees looking for food in the wild. Plus, not only is this man way over zealous with his coupons he also has feminine gestures to go with it. He was running around his cart, really he was, waving his hands saying in a somewhat high pitched voice, "I'm not going to look through all this for that one thing, I'm not!" Then when she finally gives the whopping total of $170 and some change he realizes he's left his wallet in the car...I just wanted to wring this guys neck at this point...so, while he sends his kids out to find his wallet he decides he will look for those items that didn't match the coupons and proceeds to do so. At this point, I am so irritated that I just continue to stare at the gum...thinking at some point I going to burn a hole through the Big Red. So, the guy finds his couponable items and gets it all worked out so he can save a whole 50 cents or whatever and his kids bring back his wallet (don't even get me started on the fact that his kids were way too young to be running out to the car by themselves to get their fathers' wallet but that's another day) so he checks out FINALLY and leaves. Whew! I didn't think I was gonna make it through that, but what comes next just adds wind to my fire...although at this point I decided to just laugh at it all...oh, everything rings up fine and I don't have any coupons (don't get me wrong, I love coupons...usually) so I run my debit card through the machine and check credit like I normally do so I can just sign and not reveal my PIN number to the world and sign and press "OK" and wait. Then the cashier tells me the machine is waiting on me to sign and say "OK" which I have already done and tell her so. So, she just starts hitting some key on her keyboard...and waits, then the screen in front of me goes blank and then seems to "reboot" and I tell the cashier this and she just continues to hit the key, over and over, she hits the key....for nearly 10 minutes she just keeps hitting the key and at this point I am sure I am going to awaken from this hideous dream...I am thinking at some point she is going to call over the CSR (customer service rep...previous walmart employee knowledge) to solve the issue, but she doesn't...I was just going to reach over and turn her light to 'blink' mode to alert a CSR when it all clicked together and printed me out a receipt to sign. The poor people behind me must have thought I was trying to use a card that was maxed out or something. So, just goes to show me that I haven't lost the touch for getting in the wrong line...if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen to me...I've warned Jeff, but he sticks around anyway....well, that's all for now! Happy trails!