October 20, 2025 • 9 mins
On the Monday October 20, 2025 edition of The Armstrong & Getty One More Thing podcast...
- Jack bring us two, top-shelf stories about the check-out line!
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
God, I shouldn't eat this thing anyway. It's one more thing.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I'm whoa, Oh easy on the sailor talk there, you've
lost your mind, Yeah, Katie's four ears.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
As I've pointed out, I hate self checkout. I love it.
I know everybody loves about me. I hate it well.
And you're a missingthrope. I don't get that.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I like you because I don't have to make weird
forced conversation about what I might be doing this week.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
It's a battle between my missingthrope and my hatred of technology,
my being a luddite, and the luddite wins out over
my missing Everybody gets say I'd have missed that freaking
hate trying to make that thing work. And so I
was at Costco five fifteen on a Friday. Costco is
(00:52):
just bananas. I mean, it's just crazed everybody coming home
from work getting ready for the weekend. Line gazillion miles long.
And uh it's funny. I got two standing in line
stories I have to do. But I'm in line. Oh,
so why do I go to Costco? I will go
(01:14):
to Costco to pick up my son's meds, and because
I get him from their pharmacy, super super love the
Costco's pharmacy. And while I'm in there, I'm kind of hungry, thinking,
you know, what's the last time I had a Costco pie?
I love Costco pie. So I walk clear to the
back of the store and they got the great, big,
giant size of a car tire apple pie. It's like
eleven ninety nine and it's really good too. It's among
(01:34):
the best store about pies you can get as a
Costco pie.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Oh yeah, you can ee for a giant pie. I
forget what it is, but it's not much man that.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
It's good.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Though it's really good, you're hard of tasting it. You're
not allowed to come in on food.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
It's enormous.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, there's stuff's good.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, everything at Costco is good. But so I'm grabbing
this big giant apple pie and I'm walking up there
and I'm hoping I can do the self checkout because
I'm not going to stand in the line with the
people that got the giant home depot carts with five
hundred items and all that sort of stuff. Even the
self checkout a line is long, which plays into the story.
Because I'm under a lot of pressure. There's people behind me.
Everybody's in a hurry. I get up to the and
(02:15):
this happens to me all the time. Place the item
in the whatever tray? Okay, I haven't. Please scan your item,
scan item, place your item, and then I set it down.
Please place your item in the I have place it
in the tray. Please scan your next I don't have
any more items. Please remove your item from the what tray?
Are you?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Fuck it?
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I don't want this pie anymore? And I left. I
couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do. And
there are people behind in me and they're like looking
their watches and tapping their feet. I says, I never
can figure out how to freaking do it, So screw it.
I left, and you know, as I got to my car,
while I was still quite hungry, I thought I didn't
need a pie anyway. But what tray? What fucking tray
am I supposed to put this goddamn pie in? Wow?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Wow, he's eating from the the fruit of bitterness.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
God stacking it? Wow?
Speaker 4 (03:03):
I mean, yeah, it's not that intense.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Well where are you supposed to put it? And the
lady kept yelling at me, take your kid along. You'll
explain that computer lady. The lady is annoying. She does
not need to, you know, start talking to her. Her tone.
She could change your tone. Watch your tone, that's what
I showed just said, door, watch your tone right right.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
There needs to be a start again button, clearly though,
because I think we've all gotten caught.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Up in the.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Please remove that item vortex. Yeah, like, all right, what
am I supposed to do now? Right?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Exactly? There needs there does need to be a start
over button because if you make a mistake and it
thinks you're you know, the weight doesn't match the whatever, Yeah,
you're screwed. You're screwed. At that point, you need to
start over.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Hey, there's a guy with a big plastic bag just
cleared your shelf and he's walking right, Fred, I want
you to lighting the hell up on me.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Right. Let me buy my pie which I was going
to eat trying to pay, which I was going to
eat in my car sitting in the parking lot. I
was gonna eat a whole bunch of pie. It was
gonna be glorious. It was gonna be glorious, glorious pocket
and it did not happen, So it just washed the
pocket fork. It's right here. Yeah, but has it ever
been washed?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
No?
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Nice? No, I wipe it hard with my shirt. My
other waiting line story, which I've actually thought had a
lesson for my son. You tell me whether you think
I'm right or not about this. So I was at
a grocery store. I won't mention the name of it,
but is the safe Way to shop? And it was
also on a different day, around five o'clock, and it's
packed in there, and they had one register open, one
(04:37):
and the line was, honest to god, all the way
back the entire length of the grocery store. People were
up against the milk in the back. That's how long
the line was. That's crazy, I know. So I tweeted
out you might have seen in our twitter. I said, hey,
safe way, it's five o'clock, the line is back to
the milk section. You've got one register open. Do you
(05:00):
stay in business?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
And uh?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
I mentioned the Safeway in Davis, California, And my son said,
nobody cares about that. And I said, I think you're
wrong about this. And this is where I wonder if
you agree with me or not. I said, somebody's gonna
see that. Somebody in management's gonna see that there's somebody
that keeps an eye on the Safeway twitter feed comments.
They're gonna call the manager of this store and that
(05:25):
person's gonna get lit up for why was there only
one register open at five o'clock on a weekday and
the line was clear back to the milk guarantee you
by the way, Like, I don't know if it was
coincident or not, but with like two minutes after I
did that, they opened up three more registers. I would
not be the least bit shocked if somebody didn't get
on the phone. Who monitors that stuff, the complaint stuff.
(05:47):
I know from people from other companies who have that
job monitoring the complaints online. Person around here actually, and uh,
do you think that does any good or not? In
the old days, you'd have never been able to get
a hold of anybody. But in the social media world,
they do not want that sort of comment out there.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, that's true, that's good. It's accountability. I think you
can get down. It's only in the replies. I tweeted
it at Safeway, so it was a regular feed, and.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
You have to wonder how many people are tweeting it Safeway.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Not many, right, and I do know that those companies
the part of it, they have people that their job
is to make sure things do not negative things don't
blow up on social media. Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
I could see I could see that trickling down back
to the store. I don't know that it happened to
the point where those other registers opened up.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
But I'd be shocked if the manager didn't at least
get an email from somebody saying, hey, we got a complaint.
You had one richister open at five o'clock the other day,
Well did you see the safe way to shop?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Responded to you. No, I did not, And I'm going
to trade carefully here because only one of us needs
to be fired over this, and it needs to be you.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
They said, thank you for bringing this to our attention.
We'd like to learn more about your experience. Please send
us a DM so we can assist you directly. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
How quickly did they respond by the time? That was
it four p thirty eight.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
The next day?
Speaker 1 (07:14):
It was the next day? Okay, But yeah, so I
don't know if I got the other registers open, but
I guarantee you, the manager of that store I heard
from somebody in corporate. What are you doing here?
Speaker 4 (07:24):
You should send them a DM and see if they
give you a gift certificate or something.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Slide into their DMS.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
I don't know that I'd need safety just to be sick. Here,
send them a d here's a DP, here's my jick,
here's my junk. Is this help anything? Oh? Gosh?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
What that'll do it?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
That'll do it.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
So did you go to the self checkout to avoid
the line or did you just stand there and tweet?
Speaker 1 (07:49):
I stood there and tweeted until they finally got me
up there. Okay, I definite. I definitely can't run the
safe way self checkout thing. I just don't even try.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
You know, I don't like bulleturance because there's a lot
of belligerence in society. It is possible to register your
unhappiness in a way that is civilized. But I think
that it would have been perfectly appropriate for people to say, hey,
can you guys open another register?
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Please? Thank you? I've said that before, allow and not
in a mean way, but like, yeah, you got a
really long line here and one register opened, I mean,
and in this case by this young kid. He came
over and he like he was looking around, and he
ran over and opened one up and was like wheeling
people through there so fast and working so fast. I said,
I really appreciate your hustle, dude, that's really impressive. I
(08:36):
love it when people are conscientious like that, because that's
the kind of a boy I was when I was young.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
He's probably getting paged over the PA and out and
back banging out a cigarette and came in.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
I'm like, oh my.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
God, So I used to happen all the time when
I worked at a grocery store. We'd be we'd be going, hello,
can someone open a register? And then three people would
all come in from the back and they'd all react.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Right, ah, that is exactly what happened, I'll bet. So
I'm giving him all this credit for working hard. He's
ape and back. They're scrolling through texts like oh crap,
stuck in a run TikTok rabbit hole. Meanwhile you're tweeting
the company, Yes, yes as well. At all works.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
All's well that you know, next time you need a
new line opened up, just go to the other checkers
you know where that are empty, get on their loud
speaker and ask over the PA system, can we have
a new checker. Well, I guess that's it.
God, I shouldn't eat this thing anyway. It's one more thing.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I'm whoa, Oh easy on the sailor talk there, you've
lost your mind, Yeah, Katie's four ears.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
As I've pointed out, I hate self checkout. I love it.
I know everybody loves about me. I hate it well.
And you're a missingthrope. I don't get that.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I like you because I don't have to make weird
forced conversation about what I might be doing this week.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
It's a battle between my missingthrope and my hatred of technology,
my being a luddite, and the luddite wins out over
my missing Everybody gets say I'd have missed that freaking
hate trying to make that thing work. And so I
was at Costco five fifteen on a Friday. Costco is
(00:52):
just bananas. I mean, it's just crazed everybody coming home
from work getting ready for the weekend. Line gazillion miles long.
And uh it's funny. I got two standing in line
stories I have to do. But I'm in line. Oh,
so why do I go to Costco? I will go
(01:14):
to Costco to pick up my son's meds, and because
I get him from their pharmacy, super super love the
Costco's pharmacy. And while I'm in there, I'm kind of hungry, thinking,
you know, what's the last time I had a Costco pie?
I love Costco pie. So I walk clear to the
back of the store and they got the great, big,
giant size of a car tire apple pie. It's like
eleven ninety nine and it's really good too. It's among
(01:34):
the best store about pies you can get as a
Costco pie.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Oh yeah, you can ee for a giant pie. I
forget what it is, but it's not much man that.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
It's good.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Though it's really good, you're hard of tasting it. You're
not allowed to come in on food.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
It's enormous.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, there's stuff's good.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, everything at Costco is good. But so I'm grabbing
this big giant apple pie and I'm walking up there
and I'm hoping I can do the self checkout because
I'm not going to stand in the line with the
people that got the giant home depot carts with five
hundred items and all that sort of stuff. Even the
self checkout a line is long, which plays into the story.
Because I'm under a lot of pressure. There's people behind me.
Everybody's in a hurry. I get up to the and
(02:15):
this happens to me all the time. Place the item
in the whatever tray? Okay, I haven't. Please scan your item,
scan item, place your item, and then I set it down.
Please place your item in the I have place it
in the tray. Please scan your next I don't have
any more items. Please remove your item from the what tray?
Are you?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Fuck it?
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I don't want this pie anymore? And I left. I
couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do. And
there are people behind in me and they're like looking
their watches and tapping their feet. I says, I never
can figure out how to freaking do it, So screw it.
I left, and you know, as I got to my car,
while I was still quite hungry, I thought I didn't
need a pie anyway. But what tray? What fucking tray
am I supposed to put this goddamn pie in? Wow?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Wow, he's eating from the the fruit of bitterness.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
God stacking it? Wow?
Speaker 4 (03:03):
I mean, yeah, it's not that intense.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Well where are you supposed to put it? And the
lady kept yelling at me, take your kid along. You'll
explain that computer lady. The lady is annoying. She does
not need to, you know, start talking to her. Her tone.
She could change your tone. Watch your tone, that's what
I showed just said, door, watch your tone right right.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
There needs to be a start again button, clearly though,
because I think we've all gotten caught.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Up in the.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Please remove that item vortex. Yeah, like, all right, what
am I supposed to do now? Right?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Exactly? There needs there does need to be a start
over button because if you make a mistake and it
thinks you're you know, the weight doesn't match the whatever, Yeah,
you're screwed. You're screwed. At that point, you need to
start over.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Hey, there's a guy with a big plastic bag just
cleared your shelf and he's walking right, Fred, I want
you to lighting the hell up on me.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Right. Let me buy my pie which I was going
to eat trying to pay, which I was going to
eat in my car sitting in the parking lot. I
was gonna eat a whole bunch of pie. It was
gonna be glorious. It was gonna be glorious, glorious pocket
and it did not happen, So it just washed the
pocket fork. It's right here. Yeah, but has it ever
been washed?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
No?
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Nice? No, I wipe it hard with my shirt. My
other waiting line story, which I've actually thought had a
lesson for my son. You tell me whether you think
I'm right or not about this. So I was at
a grocery store. I won't mention the name of it,
but is the safe Way to shop? And it was
also on a different day, around five o'clock, and it's
packed in there, and they had one register open, one
(04:37):
and the line was, honest to god, all the way
back the entire length of the grocery store. People were
up against the milk in the back. That's how long
the line was. That's crazy, I know. So I tweeted
out you might have seen in our twitter. I said, hey,
safe way, it's five o'clock, the line is back to
the milk section. You've got one register open. Do you
(05:00):
stay in business?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
And uh?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
I mentioned the Safeway in Davis, California, And my son said,
nobody cares about that. And I said, I think you're
wrong about this. And this is where I wonder if
you agree with me or not. I said, somebody's gonna
see that. Somebody in management's gonna see that there's somebody
that keeps an eye on the Safeway twitter feed comments.
They're gonna call the manager of this store and that
(05:25):
person's gonna get lit up for why was there only
one register open at five o'clock on a weekday and
the line was clear back to the milk guarantee you
by the way, Like, I don't know if it was
coincident or not, but with like two minutes after I
did that, they opened up three more registers. I would
not be the least bit shocked if somebody didn't get
on the phone. Who monitors that stuff, the complaint stuff.
(05:47):
I know from people from other companies who have that
job monitoring the complaints online. Person around here actually, and uh,
do you think that does any good or not? In
the old days, you'd have never been able to get
a hold of anybody. But in the social media world,
they do not want that sort of comment out there.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, that's true, that's good. It's accountability. I think you
can get down. It's only in the replies. I tweeted
it at Safeway, so it was a regular feed, and.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
You have to wonder how many people are tweeting it Safeway.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Not many, right, and I do know that those companies
the part of it, they have people that their job
is to make sure things do not negative things don't
blow up on social media. Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
I could see I could see that trickling down back
to the store. I don't know that it happened to
the point where those other registers opened up.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
But I'd be shocked if the manager didn't at least
get an email from somebody saying, hey, we got a complaint.
You had one richister open at five o'clock the other day,
Well did you see the safe way to shop?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Responded to you. No, I did not, And I'm going
to trade carefully here because only one of us needs
to be fired over this, and it needs to be you.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
They said, thank you for bringing this to our attention.
We'd like to learn more about your experience. Please send
us a DM so we can assist you directly. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
How quickly did they respond by the time? That was
it four p thirty eight.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
The next day?
Speaker 1 (07:14):
It was the next day? Okay, But yeah, so I
don't know if I got the other registers open, but
I guarantee you, the manager of that store I heard
from somebody in corporate. What are you doing here?
Speaker 4 (07:24):
You should send them a DM and see if they
give you a gift certificate or something.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Slide into their DMS.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
I don't know that I'd need safety just to be sick. Here,
send them a d here's a DP, here's my jick,
here's my junk. Is this help anything? Oh? Gosh?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
What that'll do it?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
That'll do it.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
So did you go to the self checkout to avoid
the line or did you just stand there and tweet?
Speaker 1 (07:49):
I stood there and tweeted until they finally got me
up there. Okay, I definite. I definitely can't run the
safe way self checkout thing. I just don't even try.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
You know, I don't like bulleturance because there's a lot
of belligerence in society. It is possible to register your
unhappiness in a way that is civilized. But I think
that it would have been perfectly appropriate for people to say, hey,
can you guys open another register?
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Please? Thank you? I've said that before, allow and not
in a mean way, but like, yeah, you got a
really long line here and one register opened, I mean,
and in this case by this young kid. He came
over and he like he was looking around, and he
ran over and opened one up and was like wheeling
people through there so fast and working so fast. I said,
I really appreciate your hustle, dude, that's really impressive. I
(08:36):
love it when people are conscientious like that, because that's
the kind of a boy I was when I was young.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
He's probably getting paged over the PA and out and
back banging out a cigarette and came in.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
I'm like, oh my.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
God, So I used to happen all the time when
I worked at a grocery store. We'd be we'd be going, hello,
can someone open a register? And then three people would
all come in from the back and they'd all react.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Right, ah, that is exactly what happened, I'll bet. So
I'm giving him all this credit for working hard. He's
ape and back. They're scrolling through texts like oh crap,
stuck in a run TikTok rabbit hole. Meanwhile you're tweeting
the company, Yes, yes as well. At all works.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
All's well that you know, next time you need a
new line opened up, just go to the other checkers
you know where that are empty, get on their loud
speaker and ask over the PA system, can we have
a new checker. Well, I guess that's it.
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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