Life in the Express Lane

These days it is very common to see in-store seminars, and I like them a lot. I have seen seminars on preparing healthy meals and, of course, we all like it when the food samplers are out.

There is one seminar, however, that I have not seen, and I think that stores should seriously consider running it a couple of times a week. What I have in mind is a rudimentary math seminar for shoppers. Specifically, I would like them to teach shoppers to count to 15.

That, as you are probably aware, is the maximum number of items allowed at the express check-out.

Part One should be a very simple "count to 15" module where you put a large number of items on a table and ask the participants to pile up individual items until they hit 15, and then stop. Once they have mastered stopping at 15 you could move on to the second module, which could be entitled "What is an item?"

As far as I'm concerned, a can of cat food is an item, but 10 cans of cat food do not qualify as a single item called "cat food". I will concede that three onions in a bag are one item, but throwing onions, carrots, potatoes and lettuce on the counter do not qualify as one item called "produce".

Part Three might be "Check-Out Etiquette". The express lane is there, expressly, for those who have a handful of items and want to get out of the store in a hurry. It is not a place to decide that you want the clerk to go and get you three bags of water softener salt. You shouldn't use the express lane if you don't know the price of an item, and want to have a price check done. And, there's no going back. Once you reach the till, there is no "Oh, Oh, I forgot to get butter. I'll be right back". If you want to do that, you should have to pick up all of your stuff and start again.

Lastly, I would like to see the cash registers programmed to make very loud, annoying noises whenever a customer tries to go over the 15 item limit. Perhaps a shrill, grating voice could announce that repeat offenders will be beheaded

Of course, whether or not stores actually behead repeat offenders is entirely up to them. I'm just suggesting.