Don’t you just hate it when you’re standing in the grocery checkout line holding three or for items and the jerk in front of you clearly has more than he’s supposed to? 

I’m sad to say a couple of days ago, I was that jerk.

It started innocently enough.

It was Sunday afternoon; the store was crowded.

As I went to check out, I scouted each lane. They all had at least two or three shoppers with overflowing carts waiting to unload, except the express lines.I hadn’t counted the items in my cart, but I knew it was close. Is a bag of four apples one item or four? 

When I’m waiting in the express line, I often count the items in the cart in front of me. But I didn’t want to count mine. There were now two people behind me, I figured the die was cast.  I decided to offload a couple of items to an unrelated display near the checkout aisle to reduce my total.

I never did count my items. When I stepped into the line, I figured I had about 22, but as I unloaded, it  clearly closer to 30. To his credit, the guy behind me was a nice guy; we even shared some chit-chat about carbs.

I checked out and paid as quickly as I could, feeling pretty guilty.

But here’s the worst part; just as I was approaching the exit, clear on the other side of the store, the checkout clerk came running up to me;  it seems I’d forgotten one of my bags.

Ouch!

So first I went through the express line with too many items, then I took the clerk away, so the next person had to wait even longer.

I don’t even know why I’m admitting this;  I should put it behind me and just not do it again. But it’s worth remembering it only takes one wrong move to turn a gentleman into a cad.