Old Man Behaves Like Big Baby When Confronted With A Real One

We just returned from the hospital after the birth of our son. The birth itself started at 5:00 pm and took over 24 hours. Naturally, even after one week in the hospital my wife is merely holding on, trying to get as much sleep at a time and generally moving like a robot with a near-dead battery.

Nevertheless, we decide to go grocery shopping; after a week in the hospital we have almost nothing fresh left at home.

The baby is not very content with the first drive in the stroller and decides that he definitely needs to be held in someone’s arms — otherwise he screams his head off — so I carry him through the store, which, of course, means my wife needs to handle all the produce.

Due to our lack of mobility we decide to use a traditional register as opposed to the self-scanning we regularly use. While my wife is very slowly putting the products on the conveyor belt, an old couple behind us simply starts to load their items on the belt, which means we can no longer place our remaining items, as the belt moves much faster than my wife. Luckily, she manages to put most of it on the belt and simply tells the cashier what’s left in the cart so she can ring it up manually.

After she manages to grab the wallet out of my pocket and pay for our stuff, we start loading the items into our stroller, which is empty due to the baby in my arms.

Naturally, the old man behind us decides it’s now his turn to bag his items, as well, and he literally pushes past my wife while mumbling, “I need to get my groceries, too, you know!”

The cashier, an older woman I never perceived as very friendly before, sternly looks at my wife and tells her to go home and sit down for a while. She literally leaves the old guy’s wife standing there waiting to pay for her items, exits her booth, and helps my wife to load the remaining items into our cart.

I have never ever seen any cashier bagging items in this country where the customer is expected to do this himself. Thank you very much for the support in our difficult situation. The longer I am a parent, the more I feel that only people who have kids themselves know how tough certain situations are.