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

Why do they just stand there at the till watching the cashier punch through their stuff, and only once it's all been done do they realise that they will have to 1) bag it up, and 2) pay for the stuff.

There was I in a short queue at my local corner shop with three women in front of me all buying not much more than a paper, a pint of milk and a loaf of bread. Yet all of them faffed and faffed and faffed when it came to sorting out their purchases.

The contents of handbags being rooted through.

Mobile phones being picked up, put down and picked up again.

Coins being extracated from impossibly fiddly purses.

And the change being put back, yet they'd decided to close the purse up and put it back in their handbag between the time of handing the money to the cashier and the cashier handing them their change.

Forgetting something from their list - for godsakes it was only 3 items long - and going marching off around the shop in pursuit of what ever it was that had slipped their tiny minds.

It took a full 10 minutes for these three to get themselves all sorted out and out of the shop. By which time there was a queue of pissed off blokes standing behind them all knowing exactly what it is that they want to buy, and having the correct money in their hands ready to pass it over.

Women! Can't live with them. Not allowed to chop them into tiny pieces and bury them in the garden

Having a bad day, GD?

Well, in the immortal words of Norm (from Cheers):

Women! Can't live with em . . . pass the beer nuts.


az

Meanwhile, you have obviously never gone shopping with my heart's desire - a man - who seems to have supreme difficulty when cashiers ask for his cash and he hesitates as if he is contemplating the entire future of the universe before thinking, oh yes, 25.99!

Weird yet true.


az

If that is the case, then he is an honorary girl

I take umbrage on his part (just asked him - hey do you take umbrage? and he said, nah, not really).

Still, you gotta see him in 'inaction' - it's quite funny.


az

Umbrage - somehow that comes across to me as being a Victorian sort of a thing. When some one is taking umbrage, I always immagine them being dressed in a stove-pipe hat and britches and looking for all the world like Isambard Kingdom Brunel

* reflects on the fact that when went shopping today she was not the one who took over an hour in a single clothes shop *

Well that must be something of a first for you


* like hell away *

* trips him up as he goes past *

Well I did spend a while in the bookshop, but was very focussed in the que

Oh and when I did go into a clothes shop I got a nice pair of trousers for work and a silk night dress - but you might not want to know that

You're wearing night-dresses these days?

Well that's a change


* thinks he had better a bit faster and damn sight further away *

We are not talking high buttoning and long winciette here

Some people like skimpy, lacy and silky ...

And GD you are right to run for your life - there will be so many opportunities to get you later ...

* after he is a long long way away gets the giggles *

Greydesk, I know you're hacked off, but you know, don't you, that (thankfully) not *all* women are like this! (I get just as annoyed when I'm stuck behind people like this - and believe me, little old men can be just the same!) and I am a woman.. who prefers to buy, pay and get out as quickly as possible.

I hate shopping - for clothes especially!

I have to gree with az and Della its usually us blokes who are more likely to be hopeless at the checkout. Even after fives years of fending for myself I still managed to make a complete of the whole paying bag packing and leaving the shop with all my purchases and other belongings.

Tjhey knew me quite well after a time in the local supermarkets and days later after leaving stuff there they'd give it to me on my next visit.

Where is that dunce smiley when you need it?

I think you may have just been behind some sunday zombies.

You know the feeling heavy saturday then shopping while thinking about work

Umbrellas! I did leave one in our local supermarket, and *did* get it back, the next day. Yay!!!

Alright, alright, so it seems that the women here are fabulously efficient shoppers and the blokes (apart from me) are hopeless.

I always knew that hootooers were a funny lot

I'd forgotten that Norm quote from Cheers

I'd have to say I'd vote hugely in favour of men being far more likely to be thinking - in the gap between joining the queue and reaching the till - about what they will actually have to do before I get there.

On the other hand, in my experience women tend to have their more inspired moments while queueing as they will think about more or less anything, which can be quite entertaining!

Or infuriating.

I have to agree that there are men who can be worse than women in shops. In my not-inconsiderable experience the worst kind of customer is the 'husband sent out with a list'. These gents rarely seem to be able to grasp a single aspect of the shopping process.

All women when shopping do, of course, behave like Molesworth's grandmother.

Ah, the bloke with a list. He just knows he's going to make a mistake and the rest of his day will be Hell, yet still he doggedly ploughs through the list, rather than doing the sensible thing and bunking of to the pub.

GD, don't ever live in Texas. Most people there don't seem to realise that they have to get money/plastic out to pay for something until you've rung it up and told them them how much it is - only then do they start fumbling for wallets, purses, or crumpled, sweaty banknotes

On buses it's exactly the same - get on the bus *then* start rummaging through pockets looking for coins or passes, after having been standing at the bus stop for who knows how long

You have buses in Texas

From what you've been telling us this last few years I was under the impression that everyone's bum was welded to an SUV.