Oftentimes, when making a grocery run, determining how “enjoyable” the trip was depends largely upon the quality of the checker. If you are blessed to select a line with a good checker, you’ll likely leave the grocery store feeling satisfied with a smile on your face. If you draw the short straw, and get a less than desirable or rude checker, you may feel depressed that you actually had to go to the grocery store in the first instance, and then deal with such insolent people.

So, who are these game-changing “checkers?” At the risk of using too broad of a stroke, I would dare to say that there are approximately five categories of grocery store checkers. These are the introvert, the extrovert, the talker, the reader, and the thrower. Each has their own unique quirks, and can either make or break your shopping experience.

From my experience, the introverts are sometimes the best. Imagine that you just finished shopping, and the last thing you want is to be judged because you are only buying wine, twinkies, a bag of Doritos, and ice cream bars. The introvert will keep his or her head down, staring only at the groceries as they pass over the scanner, without judgement. As they look up only briefly to hand you the receipt, the only words exchanged throughout the entire transaction are “thank you.”

On the other end of the spectrum is the extrovert. The extroverts like to talk. And, not only do they like to talk, they like to talk so loud that everyone within a 30-foot radius will know that you are having nothing but wine and twinkies for dinner tonight.

When you are in a hurry, you definitely want to avoid the talker. The talker doesn’t want to be at the grocery store either, and would rather spend your precious time telling you about his or her life problems, and what they had for breakfast this morning, then quickly scan your items. They will also, in most cases, be brazen enough to ask you who you’re having Twinkies with for dinner, and give you their 5 minute opinion on the quality of all the different types of wine. If you’re lucky, the extrovert will only add about 15 extra minutes to your grocery run.

With that said, the reader is probably the worst. The reader likes to learn everything they can about each of the food products you are buying. The reader will often times pause for each item, stare at the packing, read the entire ingredient statement, and then ask you questions about it. “Do you know,” for example, “what monocalcium phosphate is?” Or, even more accusatory, “Did you know that each serving of these chips has 1,270 mg of sodium?” Here too, plan for your trip to take a little longer than originally expected.

The most frustrating checker is the thrower. The thrower doesn’t want to be there either, and takes out his or her frustration on your food. Throwing the bag of onions doesn’t bother me so much, but when they throw the carton of eggs, or the box of cupcakes, that’s a problem. Plus, no one wants to eat smushed Twinkies.

The thrower is also the checker that will be most likely to “throw” the packages of raw ground beef and chicken thighs into the same plastic grocery bag which contains your grapes. So, be sure to intervene quickly if you think you have a thrower on hand.

With all that said, with all the trends toward self-checkout, human checkers are becoming more and more rare. So, as perhaps we should be less critical, and welcome the opportunity, until it no longer exists, to interact with a human when checking out. Whether an introvert, extrovert, reader, talker, or thrower, they are still people, and we should enjoy their company for as long as it lasts.

Checking out your checker

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