I think I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m cursed.  Perhaps it was when I entered the wrong pharaoh’s tomb.  Perhaps I offended a seer or mystic in Chinatown one time.  Or maybe I mentioned too loudly and too close to a drag queen once that her act sounded nothing like Carol Channing.  Who knows?  I’m cursed.

You see, I have the universal ability to pick the wrong line at check out.  Every single time.  Given the choice between two lines that appear to be fairly short, I will invariably choose the one that’s only pretending to be short.  And, as I’ve noticed recently, it’s not just that there’s something that will keep the line from moving quickly.  There will be some collusion of forces at work that will combine to create a situation so preposterous that no one can possibly believe it.  While the ice cream melts on the conveyor belt.

There was — I believe I’ve mentioned this — the time that I got in line at Sam’s Club behind a woman who had one item.  She had her own membership.  And she didn’t know that Sam’s doesn’t take credit cards.  Instead of saying, “Oh.  Let me go to the ATM by the door and come back” — one suspects that this is exactly why there is an ATM by the door — it turned in to a five minute episode in which she and her friend opened their wallets and purses, scrounging for pocket change … and eventually wrote a check.  For which she didn’t have the appropriate number of IDs (they ask for two).  Which required a manager’s override.  The manager, of course, was on the other side of the store.

You see how this goes.

It’s not just limited to the supermarket.  Witness the time I was at a restaurant wherein the group in front of us grew increasingly frustrated that they’d been waiting all this time and no one has taken our name! and repeated this often to each other and anyone who would listen … and then couldn’t answer what one would have assumed, given the indignation involved, a question they would have been well prepared to answer: “How many in your party?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” replied the woman who had been busy announcing the lack of name taking to passers-by and wall fixtures.  Calculating the exact number took another 5 minutes.

No one had taken our name, either, for the record.

On Friday, Ray and I went to the grocery store.  Ray made the fatal mistake of veering off at the last second to pick up ice cream while I got in line at checkout (the ice cream section is right next to the checkout).  In front of us was a single cart, which belonged to an older white woman and a much younger black man (not that this means anything, but I wasn’t even sure they were together–they certainly didn’t seem to be interacting with one another).

She was clearly drunk — not in a sloppy fashion, but she was loud and being overly chatty, and her words were slurring just a little bit.  In the cart were 6 cases of beer.  The checkout manager came over to do an override on something, observed the general transaction for a moment, and then announced, “Ma’am, Texas law prohibits me from selling you alcohol today.”

She thought he was joking.  He wasn’t.

Then the laughter vanished and the yelling began.

And as she was yelling and screaming and throwing a hissy fit, Ray looked at me and sighed, “You sure know how to pick ‘em.”

Last night I had to go pick up a prescription at the pharmacy.  I can’t really be faulted here because there was only one register open, but the woman in front of me appears to suffer from multiple conditions.  Not a problem … except that she seemed to want to open each bottle and examine the pills to see if they met her specifications (I started to fantasize about dialog such as, “My guru says that I can’t ingest anything purple.”)  In blatant disregard to the sign at the window that said “Please help us serve others faster by limiting your purchases to prescriptions and pharmacy related items,” she unloaded her grocery cart to ring up all of her items at the pharmacy window, whilst pulling out her check book.

At this point, the woman behind me muttered, “Oh, come on…”

I turned and smiled.  “It’s my fault.  I’m cursed.”
“Me too,” she said.  “I just consider it a gift.”

At least I know I’m not alone.