First you hate the Swedish, now you love breast cancer?

I think it's time for an intervention.

eatchicago wrote:First you hate the Swedish, now you love breast cancer?

I think it's time for an intervention.

Okay, so this is an old-ish thread, and no longer susceptible to hi-jacking (least of all by its progenitor), so let me run by you this Million Dollar Idea Offered Free of Charge.

Breast cancer donations should be solicited not at Walgreens (where MikeG was) nor at Dominick's (where I was) but...at titty bars. That's right, I'm talking about the so-called Gentlemen's Clubs where girls flash themselves for drunken, drooling dimwits who flash dollars to gain the momentary and entirely fabricated attention of women who would otherwise avoid them like, well, breast cancer. These guys love lungs, become morons for mammaries, are raving mad for the rack. Who better to solicit for donations to a cause for saving them? What "gentleman" would not lift his slack jaw off the runway for just a moment to drop a dollar into a can with a pink bow on it (or, for that matter, a g-string, garter belt, etc.).

I sincerely doubt that most club owners would feel that such donations would be cutting into house revenues -- it would even give the patrons, racked (as it were) with a sense of degenerate naughtiness, a feeling that they, too, were doing some good for someone other than themselves.

Or perhaps this is a new thread...

David Hammond wrote:Or perhaps this is a new thread...

No. It's not a new thread. I'll resurrect it now. I am involved in a venture this week where I am selling widgets to the public. People are lining up to make their purchases and it's a fairly efficient operation where they hand me a credit card, I swipe it and once they sign the charge slip, off they go...that is until someone shows up who want s to pay by check. After I try to talk them out of that foolish endeavor and they still insist, it holds up the entire line while they have to dig around in their purse (it's always someone who has a purse) to find the checkbook, write out the check, make a note in the check register and then ask for a hand written receipt (as if their cancelled check isn't good enough for them). Meanwhile everyone else in line is getting pissed and sometimes people just give up and leave instead of waiting in line...that's money out of my pocket that could be going toward something useful...like the GREAT duck burger with bleu cheese and figs I had for lunch today at May Street Market. (end of rant)

Mike G:

Your post was fantastic----

I can clearly say that you captured that certain Howard Beale/Michael Douglas(Falling Down)/Charles Whitman feeling that has been sorely missing in forum posts.

I agree with your sentiments, and thank you for a great laugh.

And I was just in Austin...

I'd mention how today, I was asked if I wanted today's Screaming Super Xtremely Special Value, I remembered I had to get ice, I grabbed two bags of ice, and the exact same checkout girl, who watched me walk five feet to get them, then asked me again if I wanted today's Screaming Super Xtremely Special Value, but I don't want to cause mass murder among my fellow about-to-snapees.

Mike "Do you know where those two boys learned to shoot? In my beloved Corps!" G

P.S. "Do you want the ice in a bag?"

"It IS in a bag."

It takes a "world-class-ass" to know a "world-class-ass".

This is what's wrong with the world. People need to RELAX!!! If your biggest problem is a lady writing a check, you live a pretty charmed life. I am a Jewel check writer. Proud of it too! 99% of the time there is at LEAST one person ahead of me so I have plenty of time to fill out most of my check before it's my turn.

I don't like carrying large amounts of cash on me. That's the biggest reason I write a check.

Most checkwriters are female, because we usually are in charge of the shopping and the checkbooks.

My advice is to get over yourself and order PEAPOD if you can't!

JeanneBean wrote:I don't like carrying large amounts of cash on me. That's the biggest reason I write a check.

As mentioned numerous times in this thread, this is why debit and credit cards exist.

I don't like using a debit or credit card either.

I'm surprised so many places still accept checks. Considering that a debit card is largely the functional equivalent of a check and that there are likely greater adminstrative costs in processing checks for a merchant (in terms of time and other resources for processing checks and remitting them to the applicable financial institutions) and greater risk of loss for the merchant (if the check isn't backed by sufficient funds), it would seem that the smart move for a merchant would be not to accept checks at all. In today's day and age, I doubt a merchant would lose that much business if it ceased to accept checks (particularly if it is in more of a local monopoly-type position -- e.g., the neighborhood Jewel or Dominicks), and one major merchant ceasing to accept checks may well create a domino effect and speed the adoption of debit cards. I suppose that those of us who prefer not to wait in line behind check writers can, in the meantime, vote with our wallets by not frequenting merchants that accept checks.

JeanneBean wrote:I don't like using a debit or credit card either.

Reminds me of people who use cash because they don't like checks.

stevez wrote:(as if their cancelled check isn't good enough for them)

Alas, Steve, I couldn't tell you what year a bank last sent me a canceled check (although I'm sure it wasn't in this century). And my account is with a credit union, ostensibly more customer-oriented than a bank since account holders are owners. If I were writing out a check, I'd insist on a receipt myself.

I use a debit card, because of its convenience, but as someone who has had his account emptied out after some clerk somewhere copied the numbers, I understand why anyone wouldn't want to.

I guess it just bothered me that someone started a post defining people and getting all pissy becasue they had a bad day at the grocery store. I guess it just makes the poster seem kinda lame.

I have in-laws that LOVE to stand on their soapbox and hear their own voices babble on about lame topics like "check writers" or some equally dumb topic.

I could start a post and call people names too, but I hate when people call me names so I won't. That's just me.

JeanneBean wrote:I guess it just bothered me that someone started a post defining people and getting all pissy becasue they had a bad day at the grocery store. I guess it just makes the poster seem kinda lame.

I have in-laws that LOVE to stand on their soapbox and hear their own voices babble on about lame topics like "check writers" or some equally dumb topic.

I could start a post and call people names too, but I hate when people call me names so I won't. That's just me.

This thread has been out there for 7 months and NOW you get offended??
That's not a slow burn that's a fermentation!

I only read it the other day. But I'm a Bohunk so don't mess with me!

stevez wrote:After I try to talk them out of that foolish endeavor and they still insist, it holds up the entire line while they have to dig around in their purse (it's always someone who has a purse) to find the checkbook, write out the check, make a note in the check register and then ask for a hand written receipt (as if their cancelled check isn't good enough for them). Meanwhile everyone else in line is getting pissed and sometimes people just give up and leave instead of waiting in line (end of rant)

I’m a Doctor of Pataphysics, not Psychology, so I cannot explain why – on a purely objective, scientific basis – people might still use checks in retail environments. I guess you should feel lucky that a person like this didn’t lead a goat to your booth and ask to barter it for canned goods before heading back to the mountains.

There are people out there who do a lot of crazy stuff, like resisting voice mail, eating only Illinois food stuffs that would have been available during the American Civil War, refusing to have their picture taken for their driver’s licenses. The Wife works with a teacher who will not accept any electronic devices into her home: no music, no microwave, nothing with circuitry. We used to know some hippies who lived at Karma Farm in Wisconsin and who, when they moved into their big communal house, tore out all the central plumbing...flush toilets being, you know, new-fangled and suspect. Clearly, all wingnuts of the first water.

Though it’s not true that “it takes all kinds,” it is certainly true that “we HAVE all kinds,” and you probably should not perform violence upon them. Consequently, I cannot (in my official capacity, ex cathedra) accept MikeG’s slow climb to the clock tower, but I understand and graciously forgive him for his actions, as I do all those who – befuddled, flustered and still living sometime in the middle of the twentieth century –continue to write checks in grocery store lines.

Thus continuith the lesson.

Hammond

stevez wrote:After I try to talk them out of that foolish endeavor and they still insist, it holds up the entire line while they have to dig around in their purse (it's always someone who has a purse) to find the checkbook, write out the check, make a note in the check register and then ask for a hand written receipt (as if their cancelled check isn't good enough for them). Meanwhile everyone else in line is getting pissed and sometimes people just give up and leave instead of waiting in line (end of rant)

Of course, Steve, maybe if you weren't interrupting their checkwriting, they'd have it ready when they got to the cashier...

I know this thread has been going on for 7 months and I have resisited saying anything because some of your arguments are so terribly inane and I didn't feel like fending off your rude treatment of people who use checks...... well, hello.... I use checks when I go to my Jewel and I don't hold up the line one second becaue my Jewel, and all Jewels I have ever seen have the ability to print your check out for you at the same second it is printing up the receipt.... all I have to do is sign my name which doesn't take very long. The checker asks me the same questions they ask everybody, do you want garbage stickers, postage stamps, or our special items... I hold up no one. Now, let me tell you about the moms with kids in tow who are playing with everything and grabbing everything in sight around the checkout and have to be constantly bridled in..... that's ok.... right..... but us check writers are to be shunned. Get a life and find something worthwhile to complain about.

Matt wrote: I suppose that those of us who prefer not to wait in line behind check writers can, in the meantime, vote with our wallets by not frequenting merchants that accept checks.

That’s an intriguing strategy – but it would have its greatest impact only if you informed the store owners (not simply the cashiers) that you were suspending commerce with them because of their early 20th century business practice of accepting checks in lieu of cash or credit/debit cards. Most cashiers would understandably have no influence upon that policy (though many who work the registers would, I’m sure, be thrilled to see checks go the way of the telegraph, Pets.com and the fax machine – surely, people who ring up sales must suffer greatly from irate non-check writers who see their lives dwindle away as they wait in line for handwritten transactions to be completed).

A more effective route to redressing this problem might be to wait until the check writer has finished their interminable scribbling, then discreetly and unobtrusively take the troubled person aside and suggest that they might simplify the obvious confusion and disorder of their lives by getting a plastic card. Point out in simple English the painfully obvious advantages of credit/debit cards over handwritten checks; you might even suggest a professional therapist who could help them out of the black hole of stubbornness that causes them to be a hindrance to the forward movement of humankind. Gentleness, though, is the watchword – these seem to be a belligerent people, capable of unreasoning acts, and they may not be susceptible to logical argumentation. Surely, though, they are more objects of pity than of contempt. Proceed with caution and remember: they are human beings, too, and can be saved.

David “Voice of Reason” Hammond

Again..... a totally snobbish and inane response....get a life people.

LikestoEatout wrote:Again..... a totally snobbish and inane response....get a life people.

Um, I think that this thread is more tongue in cheek than serious. If not, it still makes me giggle.

Flip

Steve Martin in Roxanne wrote:Oh, ho, ho, irony! Oh, no, no, we don't get that here. See, uh, people ski topless here while smoking dope, so irony's not really a, a high priority. We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83, when I was the only practitioner of it. And I stopped because I was getting tired of being stared at.

Let's keep this civil, and consider the possibility that Flip is exactly right before the next explosion of high dudgeon in this thread.

I guess you should feel lucky that a person like this didn’t lead a goat to your booth and ask to barter it for canned goods before heading back to the mountains.

Not quite as bad as the above, but comparable, I think:

The other day, in a hurry, I lined up behind a young couple with only a moderate supply of groceries in their cart, and I was further encouraged by their discussion of whether or not they had the required $50 worth of groceries to take advantage of a $10 Dominick's coupon.

As the cashier finished sweeping their groceries across the reader, they realized that they had exceeded the $50 by some degree, at which point they asked the cashier to return a sufficient amount of items back across the reader until they had exactly $50 worth. The cashier reluctantly complied and the male then cashed in his coupon and paid.

After extracting another $10 coupon from her purse, the female of the species then asked the cashier to re-sweep the remaining groceries, only to discover she was $20 short of the requisite $50. She then asked her cohort to scurry over to the liquor section and to acquire exactly $20 worth of goods. Of course, once he returned some time later the cashier called out those dreaded words: "Twenty-one! twenty-one!" and, finally, an adult employee stopped by to complete the order.

Fortunately, the woman did not pay with a check.

Personally, I've been let down by this thread every time that I've seen it's name.

I mean, come on! With a title like "World Class Asses" it could really hold some promise if properly utilized. But no, I keep checking and just keep finding some dull discussion about people paying for groceries - not a single glorious photo.

Meh.

I'll snap some pics next time I'm behind someone paying with a check.

Mike G wrote:I'll snap some pics next time I'm behind someone paying with a check.

My intent was more about appreciating the female form, but I guess your interpretation is valid as well.

I'll just write my attempt at humor off as a failure.

Just a word to the wise who intend to buy plants at the Chicago Botanic Garden's plant sale over the weekend of the 20-21st of May. It is a fund-raiser fot the Garden, and we were told today (at our vol orientation) to actively discourage people from using charge cards, as it lessens the BotGar's gross sales by a whopping six percent (!) on each charge purchase, which in turn lessens our net hugely. Bring your checkbook. We will welcome you with open arms, not roll our eyes with contempt and disdain.

A Side Note: It generally takes just as much time to process a charge/debit as it does to write a check, BTW - sometimes substantially longer. You could look it up.

Man, they REALLY need a better processor.

They can get it for ~2% + $0.30 per transaction or less. Rewards/cash back/discover/amex are more costly, but really. 6% is absurd.

sundevilpeg wrote: A Side Note: It generally takes just as much time to process a charge/debit as it does to write a check, BTW - sometimes substantially longer. You could look it up.

This is just not true by any stretch of the imagination. (As is the thought that someone is paying a 6% bank rate on using charge cards, for that matter).

stevez wrote:

sundevilpeg wrote: A Side Note: It generally takes just as much time to process a charge/debit as it does to write a check, BTW - sometimes substantially longer. You could look it up.

This is just not true by any stretch of the imagination. (As is the thought that someone is paying a 6% bank rate on using charge cards, for that matter).

People who write checks alot and are not impaired by a disability, age (arthritis), or baby swatting at your pen are fast.

My checker never waits more than 5 seconds from speaking the total and me handing her the check.

We obviously need to sponsor a scientific study on the average transaction time between different payment types and their impact on grocery store lines. All of this hearsay and conjecture cannot settle this contentious issue.

I, for one, stand by my earlier statements in this thread that checks are a completely ridiculous form of payment and I'll be happy when they go the way of the dodo.