You've GOT to be kidding me!

Maplewood Shop & Save, 8:45 PM.

I went to pick up a couple of things. Just two things, to be exact. Celery and ice cream. They cancel each other out, right?

Anyway, all the regular checkout lines were really long, so I opted for the self-checkout. An old man was scanning his items, deliberately, one at a time. Slowly. Reaching for his package of mashed up old man meat (it's the meat that old people eat) to pull across the scanner, he resembled a three-toed sloth reaching for a twig to much on.

Finally, he pulled the last item from his basket and dragged it across the scanner.

"Finally!" I thought... Then I heard a voice -- from the self-checkout computer -- ask him to select his form of payment, shortly followed by a more ominous sound.

"Clink...clink...clink...clink...clink..."

He had indeed selected his form of payment. He had selected to pay in cash.

One quarter at a time.