So here I sit almost at midway through a long holiday weekend. Where does the time go? I encountered an interesting situation this morning. Just wanted to see how many of you have run across this type of situation, and how you feel about it.

After finishing my morning bike ride (pedal type, thank you) of roughly ten miles, I hit Home Depot on the way home to see if any of my tribe had rolled out of bed yet. They have there, some chain link fence hardware parts, that are almost tailor made as a repair part for one of my boys' go-kart roll bar assemblies, with a bit of modification and fabrication work on my part (and the boys, with a bit of prodding, and threats of go-kart liquidation). Fact of the matter is that if they would treat the machines as more of a fun kid ride than Baja machines, and keep them right side up, all of the original welds would still be intact.
But I digress - this is about the retail hardware business, though a far cry these days from the mom and pop hardware store where "Earl" took care of our every need and question, but which sadly, was squeezed out of existence when H.D. and Lowes moved in to where the forest used to be. But I digress once more.

I guess it's a good thing I was wound down and mellow after my ride. I skipped the self-ckeckout line and went to the one checkout that had only one customer ahead of me. BAD MOVE! This very stately, well dressed couple (who once I would have described as African American, out of habit, before I realized you are either one or the other), (and BTW, the United States of America is a nation - Africa is a continent), was having a rather heated exchange with the associate at the register, Joann, over the price of a piece of merchandise. Seems Joann ran the skew and it rang up as two-ten, tax included rather than the one seventy nine, before tax, that they thought they were paying. They held up the line for no less that ten minutes while prices were checked and verified, and the customers were summarily dispatched by allowing them to have the merchandise at the price that they had mistakenly thought they would have to pay: $1.79 plus tax, versus the $2.10, including tax. All I can say is, Joann, you're a saint, and a paitent saint at that. I would be looking for a new job after having taken that kind of crap over a net 8-10 cents difference over a toilet paper holder.

I am usually at the front of the line over principles when challenged, but even I have had enough math classes to know when I'm throwing good money(what my time is worth) after bad (spending fifteen minutes in a pissing match with someone who has a computer and a supervisor proving her to be right).

Get a life folks - and maybe pick up some baby wipes on the way home. You are obviously easily irritated......but for Christsakes, buy generic wipes, and double check the price before you put them in the buggy. I don't want to get stuck behind your whiny a**** again in line!