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ADAMS, MA – “There was just way too much to do. I didn’t have time to wait in line,” Robert Raleigh explained this morning from his bed in the Cooper Memorial Hospital.
Raleigh was the victim of a sudden near-lynching yesterday evening in the Mega Mart grocery store on Harrington Street. He was on his way to his weekly bowling night when he realized he desperately needed groceries – like breakfast cereal, coffee, toothpaste, and maybe a can or two of Vienna Sausages.
He knew that the store would be closed by the time he and the boys finished the game, so he thought he’d quickly pick up a few items on the way. As Raleigh ran through the Mega Mart, he realized that he needed more things than he once thought – and there were a few sale items he just couldn’t do without. When he was finally ready to go, he noticed that he was running late. And he couldn’t be late. They always make the last guy to show up buy a round of beer – and it goes up to two rounds if you’re late.
So he looked up, and there was his key to being on time – The Express Lane. He glanced down and counted the items in his hands. If he counted the eight packages of beef jerky, he now had 17 items. But the sign said “Ten Items or Less.” Oh well, thought Raleigh, I’m late.
He waited in line for a few minutes, and then, as he approached the front, he set his groceries down on the conveyor belt. He could feel the eyes of the people in the line behind him – those who were equally strung out and just as late for something important as he was. He knew they were counting his excessive number of items.
“Excuse me, sir,” said the man behind him, “but I couldn’t help but notice that you have more than the maximum number of items.”
“Yeah! You’ve got seventeen!” chimed in the woman behind him.
“I know,” Raleigh replied, “but I’m really late for my bowling league, and the guys really don’t appreciate it when...”
“Well, I’m late for work. And this lady behind me is supposed to pick up her kid from a friend’s house. We all have places to be, Bucko, and now we have to wait in line for discourteous and selfish people such as yourself. We all have places we need to be...”
“It’s seven extra items! And most of it’s beef jerky! What’s the big deal?” Raleigh questioned, his voice rising slightly, the vein on his forehead bulging.
Apparently, though, it was a big deal, because after Raleigh spoke, a mob of impatient express-lane customers surrounded him. And that’s all he remembers.
No witnesses have come forward to report what, exactly, happened after that. Most likely, any eye witnesses have already learned the lesson that Raleigh had to learn the hard way: Never mess with the people in the express lane.
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