CSotD: Life in the fast lane
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Been there. Many times.
Terri Libenson's "Pajama Diaries" is a relatively young strip — coming up on five years old — centered on a work-at-home artist mom and largely based on the conflicts in balancing work and home when they take place in the same space.
It's very strongly targeted: There aren't a lot of complex relationships and outside events, as you would find in "Stone Soup," nor are the characters as deeply introspective as those in "Between Friends." This is focused almost entirely on the demands of parenting, housework and career, and my guess is that she is featured on a lot of refrigerator doors. That is a measure of popularity that is hard for outside agencies to monitor but that is very real and that most cartoonists would kill for.
And, in this case, I have indeed been there. I did years of writing at home while juggling kids' schedules and I know exactly what happens when you try to make that necessary afternoon trip to the store — if you have all the time in the world, a quick trip is easy to pull off. But when it gets down to the last minute, you invariably find yourself behind:
1. The person with the Bulgarian travelers' checks.
2. The person with the thing that isn't in the computer.
3. The person with the torn bag of rice that has to be replaced. (They almost never finish ringing them up and then have them wait on the side for the runner while others go through the line.)
4. My favorite, because you can see it coming, watch it happening, and do nothing to speed things up: The person who stands there with her checkbook, watching the groceries being rung up, waiting for the final total before she even writes in the date or the store name. (She doesn't trust the cash register to fill out the check for her.) She then painstakingly fills in all the information, and just as painstakingly fills in her ledger (no automatic carbon-paper ledger for her!), then replaces her pen in her purse, folds up her checkbook, replaces it in the right spot in her purse, takes up her purse and finally — FINALLY — begins to gather her groceries and get the hell out of the way.
I understand it will soon be possible, with RFID tagging, to simply walk out of the grocery store without checking out at all, and have a sensor know what you've got and debit your checking account accordingly. For the moment, the closest thing we've got to Terri Libenson's "Super Awesome Express Lane" is the self-checkout, which, in my part of the country, rarely has a line because so many people are scared to use it.
It's a great timesaver, unless you're in a hurry, at which point the robot-voice insists that you put something in the bag which is already in the bag, and, no matter how you take things out, put them back and shift them around, refuses to complete your order until a staff member comes and clears it.
That staff member, however, is currently helping the person with the Bulgarian travelers' checks.
(In lieu of a video of someone paying by check, I offer the following,which stars the very same person, I promise. I've been behind her in line so often that I recognized her at once:)
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