A Supermarket Tale

A London Sainsbury's Supermarket

I never seem to pick the right queue at the supermarket check-out.  I pick the one that just opened and I wait minutes while the cashier settles himself in.  I pick the one with just one person ahead of me while all the others have two or more and as soon as it's my turn a cashiers shift change occurs. Then there is the one where the stick-on barcode has fallen off and the computer says, "No" and I have to wait until a human finds the price.  Or, the woman ahead of me spends five minutes hunting through her handbag for her loyalty card and then another ten finding her debit card.  OK, maybe those times are slightly exaggerated, but it's true -  I never choose the route to the quickest supermarket exit.

So, this morning as I approached the check-out with my basket the usual choice had to be made.  I saw they had about five registers open.  They all had two or three people plus the one being checked-out.  As I headed for the nearest one, I heard a manager telling a cashier to open register 21.  I checked the numbers.  I was at 26.   I turned and took a step toward 21, but was cut off by a fast moving woman with a full trolley.

Now, what?  I could continue on and be number one behind the woman with the full trolley or step back into my original target queue where there were two women waiting with fairly small collections of items.  I processed for a few seconds thinking what ever I do I'm going to pick the wrong one and I stepped back to where I had been.