h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That's good work on the Restaurant Lexicon. But what we *really* need is a guide to terms you hear at the grocery. Like when the cashier charges you too much, you don't hear "Oops, I charged you too much". You usually don't even hear "I have an overring on aisle 7". Instead you hear something like, "I have a 23 on 7". I'm convinced this is a conspiracy to cover up incompetence among pimply-faced cashiers.

But, conspiracy theory aside, it would take a cryptography machine to decode some of the things you hear in supermarkets. So, good luck to whoever wants to write the first version of the Grocery Lexicon.

Right on!

Someone explain to me, in terms I can understand, just WHAT does the blinky light over a grocery queue mean? Is it a desperate cry for help or merely a way to (further) aggravate customers who have been waiting in line for half an hour? Are cashiers trained to stand behind registers in the lanes that have their lights turned off, just so that they can laugh at all the customers who try to check out with them?

Rules...I need a list of rules concerning grocery store queue lights.

*rocks and mutters something about online shopping*

I'm going to guess that the blinking lights roughly translate into "I have a 27 on 3", delivered in a pimply-faced tone of voice.

Here's another thing I've noticed: Some registers have extra attendants to bag the groceries. But there is no correlation between this and the number of people waiting in line at the register.

But have you noticed - there almost always seems to be a bagger if you've purchased $25 or less in food. But never any at all when someone spends around $200. Very odd. I've bagged so many of my own groceries (to help speed myself along), I think I deserve an honorary smock.