A Lesson in Patience

Despite being a thoroughly virtuous person, there is one virtue I’ve always lacked—patience. I do my best to conceal it, but I easily get impatient with other people, particularly those who move, think or drive slowly. I’m working on improving my attitude. After all, I’m the only one who suffers a rise in blood pressure and risk of stroke each time I let these inconsequential things bother me.

Last night I made a trip to the big grocery store near my house. I just popped in for a few things—hummus and pita chips, a few limes, a couple of apples and some cat food. (BTW, if you’re on a budget like I am, cat food makes for a delicious snack.) The store was pretty busy, and a quick visual scan told me that the “10 Items or Less” lines that were manned by actual humans had long lines. The shortest lines were at the two so-called "express" self-checkout lanes.

I got in line behind a pretty Hispanic girl who was buying a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread. Maybe she was having Jesus over for dinner. Ahead of her two burly young guys had just bought two cases of Budweiser. They scooped up their beer and left. Hispanic Girl scanned her two items, then went to show her ID to the self-checkout overlord.

I looked around. A grocery store is a good place for people watching. At my 10 o’clock view, an older couple was putting their eight bulging bags of groceries into their shopping cart in slow motion. Perhaps they hadn’t noticed the “20 Items or Less” sign, or maybe they read it as “200.”

Hispanic Girl was back now, staring at the credit/debit screen in front of her, debit card at the ready. The screen read “Please wait.” I looked at the main scanner screen. Apparently she had pressed the “Pay Now” button on the touch screen and it was now telling her to “Please Choose Your Method of Payment.” Still, the girl stared at the separate credit/debit screen. I debated whether to tell her that she needed to push the “Credit/Debit” button. Maybe she didn’t speak English. Maybe she’d be insulted. I decided this would be a good time to practice patience and say nothing.

But I daydreamed about the sign I would post over each self-checkout if I were store manager:

• Do not wait for the machine to achieve consciousness and interact with you.
• Do not whack or poke the machine. It does not feel pain.
• Do not talk to the machine. Despite having a pleasant feminine voice, it cannot hear you.
• If you are too dumb to use the machine, please move to a line with a human clerk trained in the use of simple technology.

Hispanic Girl was impatiently shaking one leg, arms crossed, debit card held up next to her mouth as if she were about to eat it. She looked to her left and the right, looking straight through me, perhaps hoping that Jesus was somewhere nearby to lend a hand. After all, she was buying dinner. The self-checkout attendant was at his post, and yet she didn’t look at him.

Meanwhile, at the checkout eight feet in front of Hispanic Girl, two middle-aged egg-shaped women had finished scanning their grocery items and were struggling with payment. They were about the same height and weight and looked oddly alike, except one had straight, oily hair and the other had curly hair. I decided they were either lesbian partners or sisters. Or both. The curly-haired one was peering into a white envelope that contained cash.

Hispanic Girl was now sighing, tapping her debit card against her lower lip, trying to determine what the cruel machine wanted of her. Was it taunting her? Staring at her boobs? What?

At my three o’clock a woman had called the attendant over to help her with some problem.

“Are you doing all right, ma’am?” the attendant asked her.

“Not so good at the moment,” the woman said. The teenage girl in line behind her sighed loudly and rolled her eyes. Do not be that girl, I told myself.

The straight-haired Humpty Dumpty Twin pointed to the screen and spoke to Curly, who held the precious white envelope of cash. Curly was wearing a sleeveless top and had upper arms as big as my thighs—kind of like Popeye arms in reverse. I wondered what kind of caloric intake was required to maintain arms like that. I felt envy. Curly poked at the screen and the computer’s soothing female voice said, “If you have any coins, please insert them first before inserting dollar bills.” Curly looked in the envelope again for a long moment, possibly having trouble distinguishing coins from bills. Finally she dug out a couple of coins and slowly, oh so slowly, inserted them into the slot.

I felt my pulse rate increase. I really just wanted to pay for my four items and go home and eat a little hummus. Patience, I reminded myself.

Hispanic Girl was still staring at the wrong screen. I was about to break my silence when she finally saw it—the message that had been staring her in the face for a full four minutes. She poked the “Credit/Debit” button so hard that she almost broke off an acrylic fingernail. Take that, stupid machine!

Just then the attendant, now back at his post, waved to me. “Sir,” he said, “I can check you out up here.” I hesitated. After all, I’d already wasted about 10 minutes of my life waiting for people to master the simple task of scanning bar codes and pushing buttons, a technology meant to speed things along, not slow them down. I felt as though I’d be betraying some personal principle if I were to give up my place in line after all this time. I wanted to scream at him, “I’m practicing patience here!”

But Hispanic Girl was now having trouble entering her PIN, and Curly was carefully straightening out what appeared to be the first of about 40 one-dollar bills to feed into her machine. So I took a deep breath, relented and went to the clerk. I would cultivate patience some other time, when I wasn't in such a damn hurry.