Ruining my Safeway Experience

I hate running errands after work and on the weekends. It seems to eat a lot of time when I'd rather be doing something else. A lot of the time, I'll use my lunch break to run errands at Safeway or Trader Joe's and just put my refrigerated groceries in the fridge at work. It's not ideal but I like getting it out of the way early and then I get to head straight home instead of getting all frazzled trying to squeeze my way through the produce section after work with everyone else trying to get dinner fixings.

The other day, I headed to Safeway to get the fixings for a veggie soup I wanted to try and make. While roaming through the aisles, I ran into one of the guys from work. The engine crews will stop at Safeway to get their lunch and dinner fixings everyday. I usually like running into them since I get to say hi and see how they are doing as I don't usually get to see them on a regular basis. I finish up my shopping and decide to get into a different checkout line than the guys and boy, was that a big mistake. The checker for my line and the lady she was helping was going all goo-goo ga-ga about having firemen in the store and talking about it. Obviously not very discreetly as I heard most of what they were saying and them being chatty cathys was totally holding me up. If I know that it would take so long to help ONE person, I'd have gotten in another line before unloading all my stuff on the belt. I just couldn't believe how blatant this checker was in getting all hot and bothered and holding the line up to chat about the firemen with her lady customer. If it hadn't been such an inconvenience to me to move all my stuff, I would have.

So thanks guys, for ruining my Safeway experience. I wish that people would realize that if it wasn't for that uniform, most people wouldn't even give these guys another look. They are just like everyone else. They have to eat and sleep and tend to their families and yes, their job is incredibly difficult and challenging and we appreciate them everyday for it but the fawning. The fawning has got to stop because not only is it embarassing to them, it's incredibly irritating and frustrating to me when I just want to pay for my groceries already and get on with the rest of my day!