the wheels fell off that bus long ago.

Fuck Safeway. Oh man, fuck Safeway.

I am getting ahead of myself a little, allow me to preface. You see recently here in Ballard, due to urban development, my very local QFC closed down for renovations. Not just any renovations however we are talking a brand new store...with apartments or condos on top. So they ripped this place down, which at first wasn't a huge deal until I remembered why I started going to QFC in the first place. Sure, it was all of 2 blocks away, but even before I moved in with Voltron, I was a strict QFC shopper. The reasons are numerous as to why I chose QFC as my grocery of choice. Chief amongst the reasons are pre-seasoned meats. "Dude, you can season your own meats pretty easily." I hear you saying, and I'll avoid the obvious joke I could make about "seasoning my own meats" but I will say this my little internet; you haven't lived until you've had their "cajun rub" chicken. Easy and delicious, but I suppose one of the biggest bummers about them deciding to bring this QFC into the 21st century is the loss of the most infamous check-out girl, Jane.

Cold, indifferent, attractive, and way out of my league. Jane inspired not only a story, but a screenplay. But this story is for another blarg entirely, perhaps even coming to a YouTube near you...that is if I get motivated.

So Safeway, yeah fuck that place, not only does it not have cute checkers or pre-seasoned meats, it has the exact opposite of those two things. Inept anti-hot checkers, meats that are sans seasoning, and the dumbest isle set up known to the modern world. Not to mention I've heard the franchise is owned by the Morm's, but I've never been able to substantiate that claim. The other day though, I was reminded why I stopped shopping there years ago.

Work ended and I hopped on my beloved #15 bus home. At eleven at night this bus is the absolute height of efficiency, it behaves like an express route, but it isn't packed and you never have to ride it with drunk homeless people going from nowhere to nowhere because the free ride zone ends at 7pm. Anyway, I leave 1st and Seneca at around 11:15pm and get to 15th and Market at about 11:30pm, again a very quick trip. The bus stop that I get off at is right in front of a Safeway parking lot, and the store itself is about six (city)blocks from my house. I decide to go into the store because I would like to reward myself for parking cars with a cold 22oz. of Heineken and maybe some deodorant because like my liver, my armpits need lovin' too.

Now, I've been to a lot of grocery stores late at night sober and drunk, mostly drunk though on a Friday or Saturday night. They usually have a larger staff on those nights to keep the drunks from stealing food, and to keep the teenagers from taking 'whipits' or from stealing cigarettes. Well, this was a Wednesday at Safeway, so the "enforcers" weren't there. I grabbed my shit, making a perfect arc from the entrance to the only open checkout stand as I did. As I approached the stand I noticed that the guy in front of me had a cart full of groceries, and I thought to myself "Just subtly make him aware that you have only two items, and he will kindly let you go ahead of him." This is what any self respecting citizen of the human race would have done, instead this fuck face looked at me, loaded his considerable amount of shit on to that little conveyor belt and much to my obvious chagrin, ignored me.

It was only after I heard him speak, that I realized why he had done this. He was French, they are notoriously rude, and that isn't heresy, they are. Okay, so Frenchie didn't let me go ahead of him, but he had a lot of easily scannable items so I figured 'what's another 5 minutes?' I would be home hanging with you in no time. Wow! I mean WOW! Was I wrong.

All of his items scanned perfectly, save one bottle of wine. As I am sure you are aware of internet, this happens a lot. Items not scanning correctly, most likely due to a damaged bar code. In the case of this particular product, it hadn't been entered into the "computer" thereby making it a non-existent item, even though it was right in front of our growingly annoyed faces, because by this point the line that formed behind me and Frenchie, had increased by about 6 four of whom had carts full of goods. Still, this a-hole persisted with this one bottle of wine he needed so bad, but was completely non-chalant about it. The checker lady calls over her manager and asks her to go find the price of the bottle, so the manager grabs it and walks away.

This wouldn't have been a big deal, if the guy had had only one bottle of wine, however, dick breath had between 10 and 15 different bottles of wine in his cart, but still didn't ask them not to go and find the price, he just let them go. The line kept getting bigger, and by this time you could actually feel the rage emanating from the group of people behind me, it was hot and negative. The manager returns after about 5 minutes still holding the bottle and asks Frenchie where he found it, he says that he found it in the wine section in a stupidly vague way, and everyone pauses waiting for him to say, "Le fuck it, I do not need zat bottle." the manager lady even gives him an opportunity by saying "I guess I can go give it another look." But his indifference wins out and she again walks away.

Another five minutes pass, and by this time I have memorized every headline on every trashy magazine, and even some the ingredients in Orbits gum. The manager returns with a little price tag hands it to the cashier who tries to scan it, of course it won't scan because as we had figured out earlier the fucking thing isn't in the fucking computer. People are audibly deep sighing at this point, so the manager gives the checker her permission to charge the guy 15 bucks for the bottle just we can get out of this nightmare. Last item procured Frenchie hands her some cash, grabs his bags and exits the store, no apology to the now 12 deep line that had formed behind as the people dealt with his wine shenanigans. Checker lady finally scans my shit and I exit the store. What should have been a 4 minute dalliance in an otherwise uncrowded store, turned into a 15 minute ordeal, and a subsequent blog.

There are many ways this could have been avoided but I'll just focus on the one's that I think matter. First, buddy could have just told them that he didn't need the wine. Second, the checkout people could have just told him that they couldn't sell it to him, from his demeanor he probably wouldn't have cared. Third, they could have opened up another line, while the manager ran around I saw several other employees milling about the store. You would think that with the closing of the QFC they would want to beef their shit up, knowing that they are going to have a large influx of people going to their store now, but no.

It's another classic example of a corporation refusing to change and adapt. While QFC has made leaps and bounds in the grocery shopping experience, from self-checkout stands, to only hiring smart young people and putting them in the place where pays to be fast and personable, up front. Now that is just my general observation, but every Safeway I have been to over the last ten years seem to employ a good handful of truly inept people, in some cases there are actual mentally challenged people running the registers, just go to the Safeway on 50th and Boston and try and get through a line in under 10 minutes, I dare you.

So that was the very last experience I will ever have at Safeway, I am now officially going completely out of my way just to get groceries these days. Instead of walking, I am now taking a bus to get my prized Lenders' bagels, at a QFC, that Jane was apparently transferred to. If anyone from Safeway happens to be reading this, know that my middle finger is forever extended in honor of your shitastic customer service, crappy stores, and seasonless meats.