Grocery store baggers
I went to the grocery store today and purchased 36 items. Then, somehow left with 38 plastic grocery bags. Why these people can’t figure out how to fill these bags up to more than a quarter of their capacity, is beyond me. One of them contained a single can of beans. That was it. A single can of beans, and this genius decided, “Well, that’s enough for you, plastic bag. Now, off you go, on your journey into the ocean until you eventually wind up in a blue whale’s stomach.
Now not only are the bags harder to carry inside at once because there’s so many of them, but I also have to figure out what to do with 38 plastic bags. And god forbid I show up with a reusable bag. I did this once and the chick at the register nearly had a brain aneurysm trying to figure out how to squeeze all 15 of my items in my giant 27 gallon size bag. She placed two bags of chips in my bag, and then asked if she could put some of it in plastic. “What, no.” I said. “Just stuff them all in that bag, they’ll fit.”
She then stared at me with with the same confused look Marty Mcfly had when his Nike’s laced up themselves. It became apparent at that point, that I needed to intervene. “Ok, let’s start with the bulkier stuff,” I said. “Grab that box of bagel bites, and those mini tacos, and those taquitos, and those pepperoni hot pockets...”
Yeah I know, but this isn’t about my poor diet. This is about mocking a woman who thought a loaf of bread made a better foundation than an economy size box of Hostess Cupcakes. I mean, honestly, has this bitch never played Tetris before? Just take a second to scan the conveyor belt before haphazardly tossing random items in the bag. It will be easier that way, and it will take about as much brain power as it takes to remember your zip-code. Trust me. If I can go through self checkout and stuff 15 things in one plastic bag, you can fit more than a single can of beans.
Self-Checkout machines
While we’re on the topic of grocery stores, allow me to explain in great detail my disgust for self-checkout machines: They are as ubiquitous in retail as Karens and the combination of corporate greed and the low IQ of the general public make them just as infuriating. I try my hardest to avoid these brain-cell killing devices but most retailers, make it their goal to offer you no other option. If you go to Wal-Mart anytime between Monday and Sunday, they’ll have 26 out of their 27 lanes closed, and the one cashier that is working is a hungover, blind woman in a wheelchair with Parkinson's disease and a bone to pick with management.
So you figure, fuck it. You Might as well do the job yourself since no one else is there to do it. Somehow the five people you walked by in the produce section stocking the same apple, were unavailable to help check that day. Serves you right for shopping at Wal-mart in the first place.
Even if I only have one can of beans, I’ll still try to avoid self-checkout. Why would I want to scan my own beans? I’m not on the clock. Unless, the cashier is the same guy from yesterday, and he sees me approaching. Then I’d probably stick with the self-check. I just don’t want to deal with it. Like, even though I can’t see the guy’s facial expression through his mask, I can bet that the second I walk away, he’s going to remark to the bagger, “Hey, remember that creep I was telling you about? The one who is always buying beans? That’s the guy!”
It’s such a hassle. Especially if you have an age-restricted item, like alcohol, and you have to wait for the clerk to bypass the prompt on the screen. Only problem is, she’s busy showing a 75-year old lady how to ring up an avocado without a bar-code. Getting stuck behind a senior citizen at a self-checkout is the equivalent of being stuck behind a school bus on a lengthy subdivision road. You’re not going anywhere for a while.
Unnecessarily loud car speakers
This isn’t nearly as common as it used to be. In fact,
I thought this particular strand of douchebag was extinct until the other day when my windows rattled as a result of one of these dipshits strolling through my neighborhood with subwoofers that cost more than his car. If you’re not familiar with this phenomenon, it was rampant in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s.
It was a trend where guys with abnormally large penis’s would spend thousands of dollars, sacrificing all their trunk space and in-tact eardrums, to transform their perfectly fine stereo system into something that sounds like the nuclear reactor from Chernobyl. I rode in several cars during that timeframe that were equipped with these systems and they all sounded terrible. It was nothing but bass. No drums, no keyboards, no vocals. In other words, no music. Just unnecessarily loud, booming vibrations that invoked migraines and ruined the song you were trying to listen to.
Fortunately for us, that trend has since lost traction. All of the participants either, died, matured, or now suffer from permanent hearing loss. But every now and then you’ll hear one in the wild. You’ll be outside on your porch with a cold glass of lemonade on a calm peaceful day, when suddenly you’ll feel your nose hairs vibrating. A minute later a guy in a 95’ Camaro speeds down your street bumping the ambience from the movie, Deep Impact which wakes up every infant child within an eight block radius, and causes you to spill your lemonade.
You’ll go inside to refill your glass, and tell yourself two things.
1. I’m sure glad that doesn’t happen more often.
2. The death penalty is a good thing.
Getting pulled over
If you get pulled over on a decently busy road, please be considerate of other motorists, and pull off into a parking lot or side street. Why anyone would stop on the main road, and block an entire lane of traffic, is beyond me. Especially, when you could easily drive an extra 10 feet and turn into a parking lot. I’m sure the cop won’t mind you reducing their chances of being struck by a vehicle either. People who do this deserve two tickets. One for speeding and a second for being a total turd-brained, dipshit.
Receipts
Can anyone tell me why we’re still bothering with receipts? I thought we, as a nation, were going green. Straws are getting banned across the country. Plastic bottles are generally frowned upon. Eco-friendly products are selling better than ever... Yet, when I go to Wal-greens to buy a small bottle of ibuprofen, I’m handed a 14 inch long receipt, and three coupons that I’m just going to immediately throw away. All this does is intensify the headache I was hoping to cure. Receipts are printed on thermal paper, which contains BPA, which means it’s non-recyclable. So we’re basically tossing forty million metric tons of receipt paper in landfills (according to the statistic I made up just now in my head.) There’s no reason for all that paper to exist. Even if there were an issue that required me to make a return, they could easily look the purchase up using the card I used to buy it with. Even if I had paid with cash, they could look the purchase up via my Wal-greens rewards account. Go to a gas station or convenience mart for a pack of gum and they’ll straight up ask you, “Would you like a receipt?”
And of course the answer is always no. They may as well be saying, “Here, you can throw this away, or I can throw it away for you.”
No one seems to be bothered by this incredibly wasteful practice other than myself, and that’s a shame. One of these days, people will take notice. Problem is, it will likely take a tragedy. It will take something like, a photographer for Animal Planet snapping a picture of a dead baby penguin with a three-foot long CVS receipt wrapped around it’s neck hanging from a glacier, for people to finally say, Oh, shit! He was right. Receipts are fucking stupid.
Shoe sizes
How are they not universal yet? In Nikes, I’m a size 11, but the same exact size in Adidas are too big. What gives? Why can’t these different brands crank out the same sizes. Shirts are even worse. The only article of clothing that you can buy every time without issues are pants. You know what you’re getting with pants, every time. 34 waist, 32 long will always be 34 inches around and 32 inches down from the inseam. Then there’s the modifiers, skinny, regular, relaxed, loose, boot-cut, etc.... Whichever fit works best for you.
Then you have shirts. How shirt-makers fucked this up so much, I have no idea. But they should definitely take notice of their rivals, the pants makers, and develop a more sophisticated universal sizing chart.
Often, I’ll try on a medium shirt and it’s way too tight. So, I’ll go up one size and suddenly I’m swimming in it. How is it that I go from practically wearing spandex to looking like a kid wearing his fathers T-shirt in one size? Other times, I’ll try on a large and it will be long enough but still a little snug in the chest and arms. So, I opt for an XL, which is just as snug in the chest and arms, but like 5 inches longer than the large. This is infuriating. The length wasn’t the problem to begin with.
You can buy 3 large shirts from three separate stores, and wind up with three shirts that correspond with three completely different body-types. C’mon, shirt-makers, what the fuck?
There’s needs to be a complete overhaul in shirt sizes. Scrap the old system and start fresh. No more, small, medium or large. Let’s do what the pants-makers are doing and make more accurate sizes. It can be chest size by arm size by length. Or neck size by stomach size by length. Or maybe we keep small, medium and large, and branch out into extensions of those sizes. Medium-thin, medium-wide, large-medium, large-large, etc....
Anything but what we have now— a broken system which makes it impossible to buy shirts online. I don’t think this is too much to ask for in 2020. If they can customize a tuxedo that will fit a miniature schnauzer, we should have shirt sizes that fit correctly
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