you've been punked!

So I'm in Safeway, not generally the most efficient place in town, picking up a few processed foods when strange things start happening...

I pay for my latte at the Starbucks counter and notice that I wasn't given my 10% Gold Card discount. When I ask why the barista gruffly tells me that I didn't show her my Gold Card. "But I swiped it through your machine & it went through, is that not enough?" No, I was told. You need to physically show it to me. (because we like to do everything TWICE here)

I was refunded. OK. No biggie. I strolled off with my cup of joe and started shopping.

My last stop was the deli counter. The kids LOVE the breaded chicken tenders so I always bring home a half dozen or so to serve cold in their lunches. But I digress. The woman in front of me is getting one dozen chicken wings. As I approach, there are two women behind the counter awkwardly walking a batch of about 12 dozen chicken wings to the metal service tins on a small piece of wax paper. Um, is there not a better way to do this? They somehow manage to slide most of the wings into the tin. So they've done this before. They retreat and the whole action is carried out again. One woman finally returns to fill a small plastic bag with twelve wings. She then stops and looks up at the customer she is serving and tries several times to explain what is simply this...

If you buy 12 wings it is $8.29 but we have a special. If you buy 25 wings it is only $7.99.

So it is cheaper to buy 25 chicken wings than 12. Apparently Safeway has some chickens to unload. The other customer and I laugh about what a smart marketing tactic this is, she takes her extra 13 wings home to freeze and leaves.

Unfortunately, there is no special on the chicken tenders, so I get my bag & head straight to the check out lanes. It's 9:15 on a Tuesday morning in a Super Sized Safeway and there are two lanes open. One express & one regular. I have what looks like about 10 items in my cart but I am aware that the case of 12 yoplait yogurts that I took right off the dolly is really 12 items so I stay honest and go to the long line. I read US magazine while I wait.

I get through about half the magazine before I arrive at the register. I watch as the cashier removes one of my 12 yoplait yogurts from the case and proceeds to slide it across the scanner 12 times. I joke, "I guess you don't have a *times 12* button on there, huh?" To this I get a very serious response that explains how they only do that for produce because they need to touch every single item that goes out the door in order to maintain the integrity of their inventory. (I so wanted to tell him that he didn't actually touch each yogurt since 11 of them never actually came out of the box but I held back) Instead, I turned to the chicken wing lady, who was now behind me and we marveled at the efficiencies of corporate America once again.

OK. I know this is long, and it may not sound as funny now as it really was but there is more. As the man is swiping my yogurt twelve times across the scanner the woman that was two people in front of my walks up and explains that she's been standing at customer service this entire time and no one has come out to help her. (Now I saw this woman earlier shopping - she was taking up the entire aisle with her baby stroller which was just one of those snap and click things that you put the car seat in, which was loaded with a baby and food as she stumbled along carrying a super full hand basket. LADY - get a cart. Put baby & food in cart. It's not that hard to grasp really!)

Sorry, back to the story.... So my cashier screams to someone else to get the customer service lady when the express lane cashier (the ONLY OTHER LANE OPEN in this humongous store) calls back that the customer service person is on their break and SHE is the only one that can help the customer. So my cashier gets on the intercom (while explaining the intricacies of yogurt inventory) to ask that someone come and lock down the express lane while that cashier goes to customer service to help the lady with the baby stroller.

I stand there and can't help but to just laugh and look for hidden cameras & someone that might be just about ready to to jump out and *punk me*...at the same time knowing that no one ever will and wondering how in the world so many people can come together to create such inefficient chaos. But I'm almost glad they did. Because I was entertained.