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Original poster

Supermarket checkouts: This isn't a thing, is it?

273 replies

DeathStare · 02/08/2016 17:12

I've just been to the supermarket. Did full-trolley shop and went to the check-out with the shortest queue. The person at it was having his stuff go through the scanner and there was about half the conveyor empty.

There was also another man just hanging around about 2 feet back from the end of the conveyor - no shopping with him.

So I went to start unpacking my shopping onto the conveyor and the man hanging around said "Excuse me I'm next". So I apologised and moved and indicated to him to put his stuff on the conveyor belt ahead of me. So he said "Oh I'm saving it for my wife for when she's finished her shopping". I looked around - thinking she had maybe just nipped back for something - but nobody was nearby. I asked if she was coming and he said he didn't think she had finished yet. So I said he didn't think he could save the check-out then and started unpacking my stuff.

He started complaining at me that I'd stolen his checkout but I just ignored him. Then when I'd filled the rest of the conveyor belt his wife turned up and he told her I'd stolen his check-out and she demanded that I remove my shopping because her husband had been saving it for her. When I refused (politely!) she shouted "you are so rude" and the pair of them stormed off.

This isn't a thing now is it? You can't save a check-out can you? Or have I just not noticed it before?

OP posts:
HunterHearstHelmsley · 03/08/2016 11:56

Yep! It's by far the best app for that sort of thing I've come across. You can do it for takeaway and eating in.. I'm not sure how I survived prior to it.

UsernamesAreAPainInTheBalls · 03/08/2016 12:08

RoseGold I know me too she was clearly off her rocker 😳 Like I know buffets are tricky cos you have you get up from the table but we'd always order drinks first or leave like one of our hats or something on the table just to make it look 'sat at'

littlemissneela · 03/08/2016 12:15

I have never experience this 'till place holding' and I hope I don't! When dh and I have been shopping, and we have forgotten the milk, say, (prob the original reason we came in as well haha) he will carry on putting the shopping on the conveyor belt and I will nip off to get the item. I have asked the cashier if its ok if I go and get something I've forgotten and they have always said yes. I would only do this if I have a whole belt full of shopping, not just a few items. If that was the case, I would walk off with my shopping to get it.

I have experienced the people behind me barging their trolley into me. Drives me bonkers. I just give them a look, or push the trolley back Grin

RoseGoldHippie · 03/08/2016 12:17

Hunter - what is this?? Omg I need that app in my life!

RoseGoldHippie · 03/08/2016 12:21

user yeah there is no excuse for it! I always take a cardi or jacket to a buffet for this very reason! If I don't have one (not knowing we were going to one etc) and my table gets taken I normally just tell the staff we've moved (if paying for drinks etc) or just go find another table of there isn't an order already placed!

WerewolvesNotSwearwolves · 03/08/2016 12:27

Queue tips from Eddie Izzard:

'I left my aura there.'

m.youtube.com/watch?v=hOu3IDE0cPA

PersianCatLady · 03/08/2016 12:37

What kind of a brass neck do you have to have to take up a table and two seats outside a busy café, with no drink, waiting for a mate for at least fifteen minutes while people hover around with their drinks, or sit inside on a lovely sunny summer day?
The staff in there obviously need to ask people to move if it is clear they aren't actually customers.

bitemyshinymetalass · 03/08/2016 12:43

bite but if this is the case, why were they sent to he back of the que? Surely the attendant would have known this and let them straight on?

Cos the attendant was being silly and egged on m moaners in the queue, I guess.

wasonthelist · 03/08/2016 13:10

Even more off topic but I stopped using Starbucks when I found out how little tax they can be arsed to pay in the UK.

LindyHemming · 03/08/2016 13:48

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Highlandfling80 · 03/08/2016 14:15

Happened to me in Boots too.

TheySayIamparanoid · 03/08/2016 14:47

This is why I do the scan as I shop!

RaspberryOverload · 03/08/2016 15:20

Was with mum earlier. She's in a wheelchair, so I loaded her shopping onto belt, divider, my shopping, 2nd divider.

Pushed mum forward. Her stuff scanned and I pack into her bag on the back of the wheelchair and act as middleman to pass cash between mum and cashier. So far, so good.

Come to pack my shopping, and obviously take a short while due to finishing packing mum's stuff. Find that the lady behind me has moved right up so I can't reach the card reader.

I asked her politely to move back, and she huffed. I'm sure I caught something being said about not having the card ready to pay.

I didn't give a shit, though. I mean, I packed fast, but I'm doing the stuff for 2 people and negotiating sorting mum out as well, so she could wait for what, a few extra seconds? Lucky for her I was in a good mood today, as if it had been a bad day I'd have slowed down.

SlightlyTired · 03/08/2016 15:21

This has happened to me in Aldi. Man in front of me has a box of 6 bottles of vodka. Then woman (presumably wife) pulls up with trolley piled to the rafters, pushes in and proceeds to unload in front of me. I told them they were extremely rude. They ignored me, and so did the cashier and everyone around me. I felt like I was the one in the wrong. I think we let this sort of thing go at our peril - orderly queuing is the only thing separating us from anarchy. And I'm only sort of joking. Smile

On a side note, in my local Aldi, people put their trolleys back in the trolley bay closest to the carpark, so that nine times out of ten, the line of trolleys is actually sticking so far out into the carpark that the cars cannot actually drive around it. Because walking an extra 10 metres to put your trolley in the empty bay by the door is a waste of all that time you saved by jumping the queue...

Rachel0Greep · 03/08/2016 15:53

Waiting to check into a hotel one day and the woman who arrived after me, when the receptionist said next please, was all set to barge ahead. Not happening.

ItWentInMyEye · 03/08/2016 16:03

I've just gone through something similar. Told my 3 year old I was going to the toilet, he ran past me, put his insert onto the toilet seat and proceeded to use the facilities before me Shock
The cheek Wink

PinkFlamingo99 · 03/08/2016 16:05

Well done you for standing your ground, what a dick!

Craigie · 03/08/2016 17:30

Not it isn't a thing, you just managed to locate a couple of lunatics.

HalfNamasteHalfTTTH · 03/08/2016 17:40

If this is a thing then can I nip down before breakfast to put my beach towel on the conveyor belt?

malmi · 03/08/2016 17:40

Could I just make a personal appeal to anyone who really can't be bothered to type out the whole word "queue" to abbreviate it to Q and nothing else as I am struggling to read some of these stories when they keep getting interrupted by Manuel? Thanks all

riceuten · 03/08/2016 17:57

I've seen this loads of times, and if it's a couple of items, and I am not running late for my bus, then I will relent. But I certainly wouldn't tolerate someone "saving a space" at the checkout for a full basket or trolley, irrespective of the amount of personal abuse they doled out. They get told to sling their hook.

Memorably, I had a women try and cut in saying "But I got KIDS" as if this were some kind of magic key that allowed them prior access. And along the same lines, I was in a "five items or less" queue (remember them ?) and a woman with 4 kids turned up with a trolleyfull. When it was tactfully pointed out she was in the wrong queue, she said "Nah, five for her, five for him, five for him, five for him and five for me!". She was sent on her way.

Katherine2626 · 03/08/2016 18:04

Bought two coffees and cakes in a local store restaurant recently; looked around for table, saw one with a coat over the back of a chair, which had been there all the while we had queued. Nobody in evidence, no other table available, so picked up coat, thinking it had maybe been left by previous occupant, and handed it to member of staff who took it away. Ate cakes, almost finished coffees when raving man appeared and shouted at us for having 'stolen' his table! God knows where he had been - we had been sitting there for at least fifteen minutes before he rocked up, and I asked did he expect people to eat standing up while he was in another part of the store. He replied 'That's what we do in this shop'. Felt like chucking dregs of coffee over him but - I ask you! What do you do with silly selfish people like this?

blitheringbuzzards1234 · 03/08/2016 18:08

Thankfully I've never seen this but I shall look out in future for lurking husbands - being the type who prefers to avoid confrontation I'll take my shopping to another till.

Well done for standing up to them, hopefully they'll think twice before trying this daft trick again.

Roseformeplease · 03/08/2016 18:08

Not sure how I can prove the BA staff story. But, MiL and DH told me and they are not prone to telling lies. They were very impressed that the airport staff put the BA crew to the back.

Roseformeplease · 03/08/2016 18:13

bite Why would you call me a liar in one post and then suggest to another poster that BAA staff were "egged on by moaners in the queue"? No one moaned. They might have been miffed but it was over quickly, according to DH, as the queue was beginning to move they rocked up at the front and got sent to the back.

I appreciate you don't know me, or DH, and this is the Internet. But why would you do that?