Open Letter to The Guy at Okemos Meijer on Nov 1st

Dear Random Guy Shopping at Meijer in Okemos,

The evening of November 1st, I went shopping. I braved the construction. Let's be honest, the streets there are an absolute mess. All I needed was a 20 ounce Diet Pepsi and a bag of M&Ms. Did I need the latter? No, but they were 30% off and I like peanut. What can you do? Grocery stores have changed a lot. Most of us use the U-Scan and avoid the cashier line. I was using the one on the right side of the store. The one that is further from the grocery section.

Some people are better at the U-Scan than others. For some, it is clearly confusing. Others move through it as fast as the machine will allow. You my friend were moving at what I thought was a moderate pace. I even heard the automated, "Thank you for shopping at Meijer," voice. I thought you had completed your shopping trip and moved towards the machine. What happened next stopped me in my tracks.

You briefly looked at me like I was out of line. You couldn't figure out why I had approached your machine because you were not done. You had scanned all of your groceries. You had them loaded in your cart. Then you mesmerized me. You then began to take your groceries out of the cart and put them into bags. To most of us, this step should have come while you were scanning your items. Scan and bag. You bagged after you paid. I have never seen anything like it. I was floored. You managed to clog up the small line of people. You didn't go super slow, I will give you that. You were, however, taking far longer than you should have. You were not taking as long as the mom who decided to let little Johnny use the U-Scan for the first time on a busy Saturday afternoon, but you spent some time there. The other mind blowing thing is how you did it? The bag area is weight based and you had everything in your cart. The machine should not have worked without attendant assistance. Somehow it did.

You might have taken more time, but you did something equally amazing. There were two young girls behind me. Both of them were on their phones. The stopped their respective conversations to stare at your check out method. They too had not seen anything like this. Impressive. Maybe you are doing it right and the rest of us are wrong. If that is the case, I feel like we should go back in time. A few years back when Budweiser had their," Real Men of Genius," campaign. I would write a song about you Mr Okemos Meijer Checkout Guy!

You do you. Should you read this, can you tell us why you do it that way?

NEXT TIME YOU ARE AT THE STORE,  YOU PROBABLY WON'T FIND THESE: