Oh how I miss the good old days! Funny, I always promised myself I would never utter those words..but its true.

I miss the old Mom and Pop grocery stores. There was one on every other corner in the town where I grew up. It was a place where you could send your kid for a loaf of bread and Steve, the owner would "put it on the bill."

Oh, there's the convenience stores where they sell mostly gasoline, but you can get a loaf of bread or a quart of milk there as well.

These days however, its all about the super markets. I dislike them a great deal. I really do...and for a number of reasons.

One of the reasons is the variety...so many decisions to be made. There is an infinite number of brands to choose from, each claiming to be better than the other, when in reality the only difference is usually the price.

I don't like the crowds. I swear people must not work anymore because they're all over the place when I go to shop. They stand in the middle of the aisle chatting so no one can move through the aisle til the chatterboxes have run out of gossip.

Checking out is a whole problem all by itself. Maybe its just me...I may have been smacked by the "longest line to get through" fairy and not even known it.

Lemmee give you an example. There are two lines at the checkout...one has 20 people waiting and the other has maybe 3 people. So of course, in my usual optimistic way, I go for the short line thinking I'll get out faster.

Ha! Whatta laugh. The first person in line doesn't have a price on one item. I find that incredible in itself..how can anybody buy something if they don't know how much it costs? Maybe its just me...poverty just makes me think that way. Anyway, this means the clerk has to roust someone in the produce department to tell her the cost of turnips. That done, the clerk moves on to the second person in line.

Here we have someone who wants to pay by check. There's no way the clerk is gonna take the check without two security guards, a notary public, 3 forms of identification, a notary public and a letter signed by the Pope.

The long line of 20 has already put through 10 people and we're still working on number 2. Okay..check is written
and customer is gone. Whew...well, only one more to go and I'm home free.

The gal just ahead of me brought a bunch of Viva towels to the counter....but it was Scott towels that were on sale!
Off she runs down the aisle to exchange her 47 Viva towels for 47 Scott towels...and so we wait.

By this time, number 18 in the long line is waving goodbye.

Back comes the towel lady...she gets checked out finally and out of the corner of my eye, I see number 20 heading for the hills. I breath a sigh of relief and roll my cart up next to the counter. Then I see it...a sign...

"THIS LANE CLOSED"

They don't even have lanes in Mom and Pop stores!