We don’t actually count the days or the seconds until our goal of 10 or 20 years have passed. It’s an abstract, meaning it’s not part of our biological clocks.

Perhaps people in line have just put the time of checkout into their abstract portion of the brain and then time passes, because time is eternal in abstraction, and suddenly they are there.

I think I should get a “no coupon” discount just for not wasting everyone’s time. This includes the calling for a manager because the customer is in a fight with the cashier over an expired coupon.

While, I am on the subject. I have never figured why women, who are the main victims, are also the worst offenders when it comes to blocking aisles in busy stores. Carts are left willy nilly; conversations persist at choke points. A little common sense and thoughtfulness goes a long way.

I agree with the Bookworm. Credit cards are a great conveniences and very efficient shopping tools–if you pay them off monthly. I wonder why people fool with checks at the cash register or hike into the gas station to pay, when that modern miracle, the credit card, is available. (I remember well the first time I used a Visa card in Europe and thought that wonders would never cease. That pleasure was exceeded only by the experience of an ATM machine in southern Mexico referring to me by name, in English). Sometimes, it is painful when the bill comes in, but I seldom pay in cash if the tab exceeds about $20, and seldom carry more than $50 to $100 in cash, unless I am traveling. Actually, I often prepare myself emotionally when I know the bill will be extra large by monitoring my account on line. That softens the final blow a bit.

It’s as though there are a great many people to whom it comes as a surprise that they’re expected to pay when they buy something.

Office Depot (and somewhere else I don’t remember) now runs the check through their cash register and then hands it back to you. _That_ one really surprised me!
Nevertheless, a friend who is cashing a work check for another friend who doesn’t have a bank account says her bank won’t clear funds for 10 working days. In other words…_they_ get to use the float - even if they won’t let us use it!

There’s no such thing as a “float” anymore. Those checks are the same as debit cards, and when they are put through the cash register now, the funds are immiadiately taken from the bearer’s account. And if they are not done like that at point of sale, they are put through clearinghouses within 24 hours.

So that 4-5 day float is no more than a day anymore.