Now, I know there are some people in this world that technology has passed by, the elderly being the easiest case to point towards, but this woman isn't even old.  She must be an idiot, I thought darkly.  The stupid machine has a picture on it showing you what to do - a little debit card showing you which side to place the strip when you slide it through.  How difficult is that?  It's only difficult if you're a moron.  Do you live in the 21^st century?  Have you never used a debit card before?  Look at the picture!!  Yup, she's definitely an idiot.

With judgment passed, I shifted on my feet and looked around as the checkout woman said, once again, "Okay, slide it through once more."   I noticed the seventeen checkout stations at the front end of this Super Wal-Mart and thought, great, seventeen registers and they only have two open.  I looked over at the only other register where a girl was flirting with the woman at the register.  The Wal-Mart employee expertly avoided eye contact with me as the two women giggled and leaned towards each other.  The sister of two homosexual brothers, I have no problem with these two women evidently finding each other interesting, but for crying out loud, Butch and Sundance are holding me up.  What happened to Sam's ten foot rule?  I should pull out a tape measure and stretch it out under the woman's nose and say, "See - nine feet!  Smile at me, wait on me!"  Sam must be rolling in his grave.

"Okay, put in your PIN number."  My checkout lady was now saying to the idiot.

"PIN number?"

"Yes, your PIN number," said checkout lady, patiently.

Sure, I thought, she could be patient.  She was being paid to be here - probably not much, true, but it was her choice to work here for that pay and these hours.  I, on the other hand, have been working all night and simply wanted to go home and go to bed.  Instead, I'm standing in line behind a fool who can't remember her PIN number.  And what's with how messy the front end of this store is?  Carriages filled with items to be returned to their spot in the store by the conspicuously missing employees.  The floor should be swept and why wasn't someone making Butch stop flirting and wait on me?  Couldn't they see me standing there waiting for the stupidest woman in the world to press in her PIN number? 

"No, that didn't work - you'll have to slide the card through again and retry the PIN number."

OH MY GOD!  I've heard it's theoretically possible, and no one has ever seen it happen but at that moment I truly believed a human being could spontaneously combust.  I think my head, at least, was going to explode.

I'm going to write a letter, I resolved.  When I get up to the register, I'm going to ask the woman to whom I would write a complaint letter.  I should have known when I pulled into the parking lot and there were some ten thousand carriages strewn all over the place.  Why wasn't anyone bringing in carriages?  Why did I have to drive around them to simply park and now had to worry about my car getting dinged?  

Again, failing with her PIN, Stupid said, "Can I write a check?"

"Yes, of course," checkout lady replied.  "It's $22.68."

While Technically Challenged rummaged through her purse, looking for her checkbook, the injustice of it all began to weigh heavily on my shoulders.  I mean, what the hell, I don't even have a kid.   Why am I at Wal-Mart at 1:45 a.m. getting poster board for my niece's fourth grade report due the following morning?  I mean, when is she going to draw the poster --  between cereal bites?  Where are her parents?!  Why didn't they have the damn poster board BEFORE the morning the report was due?!  True, I picked up batteries, but I could have waited for those.  Also true I found a couple of books to read, but that's not really the point either.  My brother and sister-in-law should have seen to the poster board well before now.  The fact that they didn't and then had the nerve to call me at work and ask me to stop at Wal-Mart at this ungodly hour just goes to prove the point that I am most definitely underappreciated and somewhat abused.  I mean, what would they do without me?  They certainly wouldn't ever have poster board, that's for sure.

Where is the damned front end manager? There has to be a front end manager, doesn't there?  Somebody must be in charge.  That's it, I'm going over to that other register and demand that Butch wait on me.  My feet are killing me, my back hurts and I just know I'm going to get a screaming headache if I have to stand here much longer.

"I'm sorry I took so long," the woman I damned to stupidity said to me as she picked up her bag from the counter.  "It's my husband's card." 

"It's okay," I smiled sweetly.  As I placed the poster board, batteries and books on the counter she just evacuated and the checkout lady whose name appeared to be Sally, began ringing up my order.

"Well, have a good night," she said after replacing her checkbook in her purse.  "At least what's left of it." She smiled.

"You too," I replied, smiling back.

I slid my debit card through the card reader and watched her as she walked away, and I thought, well, she wasn't too bad.  Perhaps, I might have rushed to judgment a tad.

"Ma'am?" Sally said.

"Mmmm," I responded looking back towards her.

"You need to slide the card through again.  Make sure you have the strip facing the right way." Sally smiled and continued in the same patient voice.  "Just look at the picture if you need some help."

By Anne-Marie Marinelli

Anna-Marie Marinelli lives in Raynham, MA with her brother and sister-in-law and their two children aged 10 and 13.  An avid photographer, Anna works nights at WilmerHale, a large law firm and takes care of her niece and nephew during the day.