Grocery Segregation

The stick is a universal if you have a cart of groceries, we all need the stick in those times to guide us. The thing that gets me is when I put a hand basket on the belt and the person in front of me gives me the stink eye and slaps the stick between their loose groceries and my contained and obviously separate basket of groceries like I was trying to trick them to pay for my stuff. It’s not just white or old people, though, being a douche is a human quality, not a racial or generational thing.

I thought basket of groceries on the belt was a social faux pas?
Because then the check out people can't plan their bagging of heavy / light?
- It’s a hand basket, there are at most two bags worth of stuff in it. If you’ve got a bunch of heavy shit that needs separated then you’re doing it wrong.
I always empty my basket onto the conveyor. Seems rude of me to assume the cashier should reach over and into a basket just to ring up my goods. Do you also make them unload your buggy when you use those?
- What was the response you were hoping to get from this?

Yeah fuck that noise! You're supposed to wait until they accidentally scan the next persons items and then make them get a manager to make the correction like God intended!

Or you can just avoid that and use the divider so the cashier knows when they're done with your items...

That stick is a fine line between order and chaos.

"Huhuh you use a thing that makes social interactions in an often stressful and tiring situation a bit easier. You weirdo."

(...?)

I mean if the line is busy and theres people waiting behind you, the stick is awesome. But then ive also had times where the clerk is checking out the last few items of the person in line when i walk up, theres no one behind me, a big empty space on the conveyor belt, and when i start placing my items at rhe end of the belt clearly separated by the big empty space, the grandma in front of me passive aggressively slaps down the stick. Like wtf im not trying to sneak my shit in with your order, its pretty obvious whose is whose.
- Uh, I do this but it's not to protect my thing or some shit, it's to provide more space to the other person, I'm trying to be nice.
- the grandma in front of me passive aggressively slaps down the stick
  that's just in your head. embrace the divider.
- Yeah like the other commenter, I do this so you can use the whole belt and don't have to awkwardly shove things onto the end.

Stupid cashiers.. I always put those separators on the belt, but they always stop me from buying one.

They're complimentary. Pocket it and walk out.
- I think they're shutting down Pocket
you need to weigh them with the secret produce code 1337 to put a price on them and make them purchasable

What? As an Asian American I and my family love that damn stick.

Don't be lumping my flavorful ingredients with some white guys bland crap at the Chinese grocery store.

But seriously everyone should use that thing because it makes the cashier's job easier, faster, and smoother for everyone.

Do people not use it?
- I've noticed that Middle Eastern refugees don't use them as often. Maybe it wasn't a thing in where they're coming from? Dunno.

I wouldn't have any problem with not having this stick, but cashiers can't seem to tell that a six-inch distance between my order and the next order is a good place to stop. Then we're all sitting around for an extra couple of minutes while they try to get someone to come and authorize voiding the items.

Is that a white thing? I do love it, but I don't know if it has anything to do with my race. It makes it easier for the cashier to tell when one person's groceries end without having to pay attention to who is putting what on the belt.

I put one down behind my items just yesterday, and the Black woman behind me thanked me for doing so. So there’s a data point.
- 3 data points so far, we've practically completed a study!
No, it's not. Just people making stupid shit for online acceptance.
In my country the cashiers will place the divider beforehand if you forget to do it and while the current customer is paying... So yes, the divider is for the cashier not for the customers.

I don't get it. I don't want to stand in line longer waiting while the cashier unscans my items from the person ahead's order or unscans the next persons items from my order. They also often fuck it up anyway but still

"You ever notice how _____ people do [insert common, innocuous, rational behavior]..."

Yeah, this is trolling.

Someone will try to make everything about race.

Reddit's WhitePeopleTwitter and BlackPeopleTwitter were pretty interesting in what sort of stuff was considered white and what black

You're right, from now on I'll wait until they scan the next person's item and then go "ew, god no. you really think I'd buy that garbage?"

Race baiting has really fallen off as a profession, I see.

Only white people use them? I moved from the PNW down south and I can say they get used much less down here. Haven't paid attention to race though

I don't want some filthy poor persons grocceries touching my filthy poor person grocceries

Did their chocolate get into your peanut butter?

I just realized I haven't used a conveyor belt checkout since before the pandemic. It's either grocery delivery or self-checkout.

Mr Richie Rich here, getting food delivered.
- Delivery price is cheaper than the fuel, prices are same as the store.
  It's actually cheaper here, and it is also cheaper and easier for both the store and me.

Not totally relevant, but: that little tub of Philadelphia cream cheese is like $8 nowadays. What in the ever-loving fuck? And yet you can still buy a brick of that shit for $1.60. Trying to get cream cheese out of that folded-over piece of foil is certainly annoying, but it's worth paying 5X as much to get it out of a convenient tub instead? Make it make sense.

Foil is so easy with a butter knife. You can just scrape it clean. Much easier than digging it out with a spatula

My brother used to say that if you had enough of those dividers you could solve every property dispute because nobody violates that line.

Ive had cashiers blatantly ignore it and scan items for the wrong person many times now....
...I still use the stick, but also make sure theres plenty of space.
- In Arkansas you're now allowed to shoot at the feet of cashiers who sass you, so they keep tabs on it

Throw it in a crowd of white people and watch us fight over it like a pack of yorkshire terriers fighting over a milk bone.

Always struck me as a city thing, not a white people thing.

Maybe things have changed, but in the small town where I grew up, people generally wouldn't bother.

there would usually be a gap delineating one persons items from the other's anyways
the person who was professionally scanning our groceries 100% had the expertise to see the gap and comprehend its meaning
If (I never ever saw it happen, ever) they had grabbed something, someone would have noticed, said "whoops, that's not mine". Nobody would think someone was trying a scam.

I feel like this is an amazing measure of someone's general level of anxiety. Or maybe a measure of how little credit they give the person scanning groceries? Both?

It's a measure of how often some asshole that doesn't leave a gap between their groceries and the previous appear on the store.
Seems to me that it's about how present the cashier is. I've made sure to leave a huge gap and they still paid so little attention they were confused about whose stuff was whose.

Another problem solved by self-checkout.

Shouldn't have cropped the top person's username so we could see who supports being slightly disruptive, lol.

The real issue is you're using it sideways