Rekiwi's Blog

With any luck, I'm going to grow old.

I hereby solemnly promise that I will not be one of those silly old farts at the checkout counter fumbling with pennies from my coin purse to make exact change.

I can be a patient man. I stop for pedestrians in crosswalks. I've driven large trucks as part of my job, so I don't feel singled out when a truck blocks my lane as it turns out of a driveway. I hold doors open for anyone behind me, whether a strapping young punk or doddering matriarch inching along with her walker.

And this is where I draw the line between the aged who deserve my patience and those requiring a 2x4 to the occiput.

The old lady with the walker can't help it. Age has made her infirm. I can spare a few seconds to help make the remainder of her life a little easier.

The old pruned dipshit counting change, however, is just clueless and inconsiderate. The years have dimmed his sight and set his hands trembling with a mild palsy, transforming him into a change counting machine. Watch as the coins spill! Listen as he bickers with his wife! Good Christ.

If you can't crawl out of the primordial slime as far as the last decade of the 20th century and use a credit or debit card, hand over some paper and get change. If you're worried about being swindled, stand aside and count your change. If you fret over unspent change piling up, dump your coins into a Coinstar machine. If you can't stomach the 8.9% fee (and I wouldn't blame you), avoid the Coinstar fee and buy a gift card with your change. If all this is just too much, go to your bank, get a stack of paper sleeves, and roll your change yourself. This should appeal to your fiddly, anal nature. Just think of the hours and hours and hours of pleasure in the privacy of your own home far away from me just trying to buy a bottle of Worcestershire sauce.

These elderly coin-groping fiends are in league with the ancephalic fuckwits who stand in mouthbreathing stupor as the checker rings up a month's supply of Mountain Dew and pork rinds, waiting for the grand total to drift back into semiconsciousness and dig their checkbook out of their purse/pocket/asscrack. These oxygen thieves revel in their power. The checker is in their thrall. Everyone in line behind them must wait for the Grand Shopper who then wants a few scratchers... and some postage stamps... and a pack of cigarettes. They object loudly as their three boxes of soda fail to trigger a "buy 2 get 3 free" deal. Elementary addition is beyond their grasp, like astrophysics to a lungfish. So you'd like the special price? Rather then all of us waiting for you to amble through the store to get another couple of boxes, why don't you have the checker just scan a box a couple of times? Then you can settle up and retrieve the additional boxes at your leisure, and the line can move. Alternately, you can spontaneously combust into a pile of ashes that I can piss on while I purchase my parsnips and ice cream.

I need to spend more time with friends, because the rest of you are killing me.