This is next week's newspaper column
I think it would be a great service to holiday shoppers if the county hired football and basketball referees to blow the whistle and throw the flag on shopper and driver violations, enforcing standards of appropriate behavior, and thereby making Christmas shopping more pleasant for everyone. Here are some violations which should be penalized.
Delay of Game: Waiting until the sales clerk announces your total purchase before you begin digging through your purse for your wallet. Tack on 5 extra yards for use of checkbook or any slow and thoughtless action that causes the train of frazzled shoppers behind you to reach for pepper spray.
Lane Violation: Continuing to turn left on Mallory Lane despite the stoplight turning red five minutes ago.
Illegal Shift: When the last person in line leaps in front of everyone else when a new register is opened.
Double Dribble: Any dividing of items while at the register so as to use two different credit cards or methods of payment for separate transactions. Also a delay of game.
Technical Foul: Called on any customer who is rude to a store employee who is paid a minimal wage and has been on his/her feet since the store opened at 8 a.m.
Illegal Procedure: Flagrant attempt to use an expired coupon, attitude often resulting in technical foul and delay of game. Three penalties for the price of one.
Personal Foul: (Over the Back) Someone reaching over your shoulder to grab the sweater or Chia Pet you were eyeing.
Intentional Grounding: Man dropping the Victoria’s Secret bag behind a display at Belk when he sees someone he knows from church.
Taunting: Man being caught with Victoria’s Secret bag before he could ditch it.
False Start: Walking to your car merely to deposit packages while another car has been trailing you in order to get your vacated parking space.
Illegal Substitution: Trying to execute an item exchange or refund without a receipt. When this violation occurs at register instead of customer service desk tack on delay of game penalty.
Unsportsmanlike Conduct: The tantrum or meltdown of a child in Toys-R-Us. Parent is actually the one penalized… for wisdom failure. (What did you think would happen if you brought a nap-needing 4 year-old into a toy store?)
Back Court Violation: In mid-transaction, the paying customer suddenly realizes he forgot an item from the sporting goods department which is in another zip code. He dashes off toward the store’s horizon and pledges to “be right back”. Tack on delay of game penalty.
Illegal Screen: When a shopper straddles the path of two checkout lines rather than committing to one line and staying in it.
Chop-Block at the Knees:What will happen to any man who buys his wife another gift with the words “As Seen on TV” on the package.
Off-sides: When drivers of large SUVS don’t seem to know what the white lines in a parking lot are there for.
Pass Interference: Mall shoppers who walk slower than a monk with a migraine and don’t stay to the left.
Holding: Walking around store carrying the last available unit of an item (Cheez Whiz Cookbook) you don’t really want and probably will not buy. Also hiding any item in the store (such as Math-Whiz Barbie behind a row of paint cans ) in order to check price at store across the street.
Excessive Celebration: Bragging that you snatched the last unit of an advertised item, of which the store only had four in stock to begin with. Penalty is doubled if item is a 6 a.m. door buster special where several shoppers are being treated for hypothermia and frostbite.
--rLp--
Comments