I saw a lady do the most amazing thing today

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I went to checkout my 20 ounce bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper for lunch. There were two checkouts open. One had two people in line. The other had four. There was also a line of people at the service desk. So I went to the shortest line.

I should've went with the longer line. The person in front of me appeared to be the result of an unfortunate genetic experiment involving a human being and a cell phone. While carrying on a somewhat loud conversation about her bar-crawling experiences last night, and bar-crawling experiences yet to come tonight, she managed to do the following while holding the cell phone to her ear the entire time:

• Unload her cart only after the person in front of her left. She had some bulkier items like a DVD player, a bag of dog food and a couple Sterilite totes.
• Rummage through her ginormous purse and retrieve her checkbook (only after she was told her total, natch).
• Write out her check (this was kinda humorous to watch as it required her to hold the phone to her ear using her shoulder whilst writing out the check).
• Detach check and hand to cashier.
• Return check to ginormous purse, go digging in ginormous purse, and retrieve her wallet.
• Flip through wallet and retrieve her drivers license. Hand to cashier.
• Push button on pin pad to approve amount of check, since at the clearance swamp, checks are automatically debited from the writer's account. (She had to be asked to do this twice before actually doing it.)
• Receive receipt.

At this point, she interrupted her cell phone conversation, but only to snap at the cashier "This (a sports bra or something) is supposed to be $7.99. It rang up at $9.99." Then back on the phone while cashier paged intimate apparel for a price check.

When the price was confirmed at $7.99, the cashier told the customer to go to the service desk to get the difference back, but again she had to tell her twice, because she was so engrossed in blah blah blahing.

As a result of all this I got on break 10 minutes late. Still, it takes a fair amount of talent to multitask like that I guess.

[wagegoth]

That's not multitasking, that's failing. If you it takes you twice as long to do two things at once, then stick to one at a time.

[depechemodefan]

I hate people on the phone like that.

[Mike Taylor]

This is why I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of stores incorporating Faraday cages in their construction.

[AnaKhouri]

The only good thing about cell phone twits is that you can usually be really sarcastic and dismissive to them and they are so self-absorbed they don't even notice.

[Jadedcarguy]

Reminds me of a girl I dated a few months back. Constantly on the phone, constantly texting or talking, multitude of "guy friends". She could shop, talk, text, and bitch out a cashier all at once. I was simultaneously impressed and embarrassed.

Didn't last long.

The only good thing about cell phone twits is that you can usually be really sarcastic and dismissive to them and they are so self-absorbed they don't even notice.

Guilty.

[Kogarashi]

This is why I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of stores incorporating Faraday cages in their construction.

Sometimes I need to call Hubby about something while in the store. How about we set one up around just the registers instead?