So I'm in Kmart today, on my lunch hour, buying standard stock items for my home, to replenish my dwindling supplies of foot scrub and bear grease. And I go to the checkout counter, and there are two cashiers open for business, each with at least seven people in their line.

I watch these cashiers lethargically ringing people up, stopping for a good 10-second dig into their big hair with their long Howard Hughes fingernails before continuing the endless process of dragging things across the scanner… frankly, a chimp would be more efficient. I’m tempted to leave. But then I brace myself: I've come this far, made my selections painstakingly, having read all the labels and compared prices between American Fare generic products and the leading brand names....

So I resign myself to a long wait and content myself with reading the covers of Weekly World News (it seems Batboy has been spotted at the Kennedy compound) and Field and Stream (thumbing idly through the reviews of doe estrus versus doe urine as an irresistible deer attractant so mouth-breathing yokels can blast the bejeezus out of a few of God’s creatures), when I see, from the corner of my eye, that the old woman behind me in the pink pantsuit is noticeably antsy about the wait.

She exhales loudly through her nose, cranes her neck looking for five more cashiers to materialize out of thin air and hail her over to their checkout counters. When a few seconds tick by and they do not magically appear, she huffs a little louder, and I can see, again from the corner of my eye, that she is trying to catch my eye.

I stubbornly keep my nose buried in Field and Stream, feigning slack-jawed fascination with the Red Man tobacco ad I am faced with. I study the rugged, stubbled jawline of the swarthy redneck on the page, determined not to make eye contact with this impatient crow, because the second I do, she will try to incite a riot with my help.

Oh no, not the sort of riot you're thinking of, in which we would all take up plastic-tipped gardening implements from the Lawn and Garden department and brandish them menacingly at the bovine cashier until she starts waving her hand all up in our faces and inviting us to back tha fuck up...

No, this woman wants to involve me in a verbal assault on the Kmart Corporation as a whole, loudly proclaiming that there should be more than two cashiers open during lunch hour, especially since so many people are in line.  Then we would huff and puff together and say (without looking directly at the cashier, because that would be confrontational), "It never fails. I always pick the line with the slowest goddamn cashier in the store!"

I want no truck with this malcontent, this woman in the pink pantsuit. She is practically dancing with irritation, and I know that now some of that irritation has been transferred to me, since I will not bitch with her.  She finally storms over to the other line, which has not moved an inch in the ten minutes I have now been standing here.

I am happy that she is gone. I can now put down Field & Stream and get back to counting the different varieties of candies and gums next to me, mentally categorizing them by manufacturer, flavor, and refreshment quotient.

But my joy is short-lived.

The woman in front of me feels duty-bound to take up the work that Mrs. Pink Pantsuit let fall. She turns around, prepared to catch my eye, hoping we will exchange a meaningful glance, one that says, "Can you believe this?"  Perhaps she will raise her eyebrows in suggestion of this thought, and I will roll my eyes skyward, as if to reply, "I know. I know. But what can we do?"

But again, I avert my eyes, memorizing the bar code on the back of that Goo-Goo Cluster, the last one in the box

The woman in front of me, clearly disgusted with my defeatist attitude toward this ridiculous situation, begins counting the people in our line. She points with her index finger and counts under her breath, starting with the people at the counter, moving on to include herself, me, and the 27 people who are now standing behind us.

What, I wonder, does she plan to do with such a statistic, once she has it? Will she complain to the cashier? What reaction is she hoping for? Not the one she’ll get, surely.

The line moves forward imperceptibly. I can feel myself aging. But I've already spent 30 minutes in this, the fourth concentric circle of Hell. Surely I can last a little longer. Otherwise, what have I been doing this whole time?

And then, out of the other corner of my other eye, I notice the store manager, quietly checking people out at the Return Counter. She has not told anyone that she is open, but I KNOW she is open. I scurry over there with my purchases and am swiftly checked out.  At the conclusion of the transaction, she says mechanically,"Thank-you-for-shopping-at- Kmart-have-a-nice-day" with all the sincerity of plywood.

As I am walking out, I do feel a measure of pity for her. After all, I too have served my time in the Army of the Damned that is the retail workforce.

I am all too familiar with people who pout and threaten and complain about a 49-cent late fee on a crappy Vietnam War/MIA movie hosted by Sybil Danning.

I know all about folks who hand you crumpled, damp bills from their sock.

I've had my share of overly flirtatious men who think you're a cold bitch for not responding to their clumsy, stupid overtures.

I've also seen enough guys who try to intrigue you by NOT revealing too much of themselves as they buy that Molly Hatchet CD and drop broad hints about their career as a Navy Seal.

Him: "You've probably noticed I haven't been around the past few weeks."

Me: "Can't say as I have, Complete Stranger."

Him: "Well, I've been on maneuvers in the Adriatic Sea. I can't tell you too much about it, but see this scar?"

Me: "You mean that hickey?"

Him: "Ahem, well, I got that from a moray eel as we were planting explosives on a Russian underwater surveillance satellite."

Me: "Huh. Well, here's your receipt. Have a nice day."

And then you see them outside the store, waiting for the bus. Since when do Navy Seals travel by bus?

So yes, I understand. And standing in that line at K-mart for as long as I did, I can only imagine how horrible it must be to work there, spending all day with the sort of people who patronize K-mart, enduring the ceaseless bitching of your Springer-watching co-workers, wondering if suicide is really all that painful. And what's my point? No point, really. I’m reminded, however, of Dennis Miller’s excellent rant about how everyone on the great service highway seems to be an uninterested sociopath with the interpersonal skills of a wolverine.