Here’s my $0.02 on picking a cashier. If it’s a grocery store you go to all the time and know the faces, know who is going to hassle you, you just do the best you can. But if I can, I always choose the teenage boy/young adult guy cashiers. For 2 reasons. One is that they don’t give a flip what coupons you hand them, they just start scanning away. They don’t scrutinize each one, read all the fine print, go through your bags before scanning it or roll their eyes at you when you hand them a stack of coupons. The other is that young guys are very computer and tech savvy nowadays. If a coupon beeps at them or stops, they usually have the technical skills to push it in without calling a manager over. Mind you, I don’t do anything illegal.

But we’ve all been there. They scan a coupon, it beeps. Cashier looks at you & says “Did you buy this?” or “Did you get two of these?” and then you have to go through all your parcels and show them that yes, you did in fact purchase those items. Then they check the weight/size/ounces/variety/flavor to make sure that you have exactly the item specified on the coupon. Then they scan again and it beeps again. They scrutinize the expiration date. They tell you that you can’t use it because the item is on sale or some other new rule they pull out of their arse. You win the argument and convince them that yes you can use that coupon. They try to key in a few things and nothing. So now they have to call over a manager/supervisor, all the while my 2-year-old has taken everything within his reach and tossed it on the floor, now he’s face down on the cart bar with his mouth on the handle. I find that while most middle-aged women are very pleasant (I love the ones at my wags!) they are the least computer-savvy. They hear a beep and you think their heads might actually explode.

But seriously, you have a 17-year-old kid just trying to earn some gas money by cashiering–he hears a beep and inside of 3 seconds he has the coupon entered in.