Sweet Victory

We just finished filling up our big cart with groceries when I decided to have a last stroll around for last minute buys before lining up in the cashier. Neither of us knew that the first cashier we lined up for was dedicated to shoppers with five items or less. So right away, we switched to the next lane that services big carts as we conversed,

"Wanna try the next lane?"

"Nope, it's fine here. It's rush hour and I'm sure all other cashiers are filled up. Besides, I don't think we'd take that long 'coz I think the shoppers ahead of us didn't buy as much as those in the other lanes."

After a few minutes waiting in line, we noticed that the other cashier next to the one we lined up for was cutting off the line as it prepared for closing time. It was definitely trouble for the shoppers who were cut off, and we were grateful as we were already nearing the counter. To our surprise, a bunch of grandmas sneaked and cut into our line. They obviously knew we were lined up already and they just ignored us, probably thinking we'd let them get away with it. But yeah, we did.

"Hey look, aren't we lined up here already?" I was asked.

"Yeah, give 'em a break. They must be a bunch of grandmas in a hurry. Besides they might be shopping for just a few," I replied.

Some minutes more later, the bunch of grandmas I'd like to call "partners in prime", again switched to the other cashier we lined up for before and again cutting in between the other people in the process.

"Oh my, what a relief. But now they've troubled the people from the other line," I uttered.

Our line suddenly grew shorter to our delight and now at only three more shoppers ahead of us, the parters in prime realized that it would take them longer waiting to where they transferred. We noticed them eyeing to get back to our line. But nooo, I read them ahead and closed up on the shopper ahead of us, giving them no chance of cutting in front of us again. One of the grandmas was trying to cut in at one point, but our defenses were solid.

The game is on!

It seemed like they took on the challenge as they kept checking on us if we were ahead of them. We did the same. I whispered, "Hah! Look who's about to finish now. We don't need to cut in lines just to finish first" and I think they heard. Now down to two shoppers on each line, it was a tie. It was a close fight until a technical error happened to our lane. I don't think it was karma but the cashier just had to re-enter the items of the current shopper and that gave us a two-shopper handicap.

"Oh no, but I know we're going to make it, I'm sure! We revving up! Go cashier go!" I cheered after I laughed a devilish laughter.

The shopper ahead of us finished pretty quickly to our advantage, closing the race to one-to-one. Good thing we sorted our groceries, ready to be accounted for in the doot-doot machine. One by one, we carefully handed over every item of every type to the cashier. Then everything else went smooth. And so while we were paying, they were still unloading their unsorted groceries from their basket. We walked away with a sweet victory as another one bites the dust!

There was no champaigne spraying but we celebrated by buying ourselves some chili mushroom beef-topped rice and fish fillet for dinner.