The Coupon Genius

I had to wait more than fifteen minutes behind a coupon genius in the express lane at my supermarket last night. I knew it was going to be trouble when I saw over twenty items (the limit is 5) thrown haphazardly on the conveyor belt, but the other lines were too long to jump to. I decided to stick it out. This was a mistake. After the cashier had rung up all of the items (mostly boxes of frozen vegetables, margarine, and an air freshener), the coupon genius revealed that he intended to pay entirely with coupons. The only problem was that the coupons didn't apply to the majority of the items he had brought to the checkout counter. This meant that the cashier had to rescan all of the items that had to be removed from the sale. Once this was done, the total came to a little over $6 for several boxes of margarine. The coupon genius insisted this wasn't correct. There should be no charge. By this time, I was beginning to lose it. The other customers were growing impatient as well. The woman behind me was doing that "Hmm, hmm, hmm" thing while I took a more direct approach (even if it meant playing into the "angry white guy" stereotype--I was the only white person on line). A manager was dispatched with a magic key that enabled the cashier to start the sale all over again. As it turned out, the coupons did cover the cost of the margarine. For some reason the woman in front of me felt the need to apologize to the coupon genius while also mentioning the funeral of the bus driver who had been stabbed in Brooklyn (I'm still trying to figure out what the connection was). But after he left, she turned to the rest of us on line and said, "Someone's gonna be buttering it up tonight."