"I'll Tell You One Thing She's Doing Is Testing Your Father's Patience"

So, I took my daughters to Wal-mart today because I had to pick up some stuff. We wandered around the store for awhile, gathered some items into our cart and then went to the checkout.

  I was not in a particular rush, so I went to the nearest line that was not the Express Lane(or whatever Wal-Mart officially calls it) and joined the line. THIS was an error on my part. I did not notice it right away, and by the time I did notice it, it was too late.

  The woman in front of me in line had a cart full of stuff. This in itself was not the problem. I'm still not sure what the full extent of the problem. What i do know is that is was many layered.

  For one thing, she seemed to have some weird specific way of putting her items on the conveyor belt. This in and of itself was not really so annoying, but she was holding two items in her one hand while she was placing the items on the belt, so it was taking FOREVER for her to get them on the damn belt!

  Then, either her dog or her daughter had chewed on her credit card, so it could not be swiped. THEN, her card was declined. THEN, she just wandered off to go and call someone on the phone(to be fair, I think it was probably about the card, but still).

  The title of the post, by the way, is the response I gave to my daughter when she asked "What is she DOING?"(this is a 5 year old asking this question).

  Finally, the checkout lady was able to start ringing us up, and she apologized to me. I told he that it was no trouble because it certainly wasn't HER fault. But you know what it made me realize ? I was definitely bothered that this woman on line in front of us never had the courtesy to apologize to us. I mean, I'm sympathetic to the credit card troubles(whether a glitch or actual lack of funds), but don't you look at the people in line behind you and offer some sort of "I'm sorry" when you realize how very long this has taken?

  Is that not common courtesy?