Grocery Store Is No Place for Line-Switching Surprises

Summary

---

Dear Martin: I agree with the many readers of your column who expressed the opinion that holding a place in the supermarket checkout line while a companion is still shopping is wrong. If a couple goes to the supermarket together, however, and their shopping has been completed, suppose each of them takes a place in adjacent lines. One has the cart and the other stands in line without it, and both wait to see which line moves the fastest. I think this is permissible. What is your opinion? - Fred in Syracuse, N.Y.

Dear Fred: I know it happens, but I don't think this kind of line- switching is very different from place-holding. If you are the one who is standing in line empty-handed, the customers behind you might be justifiably unhappy when your spouse arrives with a full cart from another line.

See the full content of this document

Extract

---

Grocery Store Is No Place for Line-Switching Surprises

Audrey Middlebrook, of Houston, wrote: "A supermarket checkout line is not the same as a line of people waiting t...

See the full content of this document

---