So you thought I gave up on you, huh? Jigga please. I just didn't want you stealing my stuff, you scurvy scalawags.

The low-down (on the down-low): I spent all of last week at a beach house in Bethany Beach, culminating in a New Year's Eve party so totally unbelievably awesome, I can't even begin to describe it. Actually, that's mainly because there are significant portions of it that I don't remember. If I called you shortly after midnight and left a lengthy message on your voicemail, um, I apologize if I said anything untoward. Which I undoubtedly did. (More on this later.)

I didn't bother to tell you crazy fools where I was because revealing to the entire universe, through the medium of the Eentarweb, that nobody was at my house but four stupid cats and some mildew, would have resulted in the theft of all that I hold dear, namely, my computer, my TV, and my collection of plates from the Franklin Mint.

So ANYwayz, all I have to offer you today is a tidbit of rantage concerning self-checkout lanes, which I consider to be either the best invention ever, or the stupidest invention ever, depending on whether or not I'm currently using one, or in line behind other people to use them.

Kmart had self-checkout lanes for a while, but eventually removed them. When this happened I became angry, and wrote many the nasty email to Kmart, most of which read as follows:

What the F, mans? I used to be able to check myself out of your jams without any difficulty. It took me like 45 seconds to get through a self-checkout in your store with my copies of "Vogue" and "Boys' Life" and "Handgun Times" and "The New England Journal of Medicine." Now you've gotten rid of them, and so now I'm stuck waiting in lines with the rest of the proletariat! That's so totally uncool, I've invented a new adjective to describe it: "crapflastic." Bring back the self-checkout joints, mmmmBEYOTCH!

However, I have come to realize that, instead of being able to save money on pesky employees by making customers do the work themselves, they actually have to hire MORE employees to make the self-checkout idea work, and here's why:

Most people are death-defyingly stupid.

I mean, I don't understand how these people manage to walk upright. Yesterday, at the Acme, I bought four items: a pork roast, some seasonings, a new meat thermometer (I melted the old one), and a head of cauliflower. The Acme, in its wisdom, reacted to a sudden onslaught of customers by having only two cashiers. The line for the four self-checkout stations only had 2 or 3 people in it, so I headed over.

Station Number 1 had a woman who clearly did not understand the concept of "express." She had roughly 4037 items, each of which she would scan and bag, until the bags were full, so she just took them off the station, which of course made the computer bitch and moan because it senses the weight of your stuff to make sure you didn't scan, say, a can of DelMonte spinach, and instead place a 3 pound halibut in the bag. This woman was scanning items when I got into line; she was still scanning items and fighting with the machine when I left the store. She was also notable in that she had the ugliest child I have known since a guy in college revealed to me that his own afterbirth was, at first, thought to be his twin brother. This child, despite having the size and color of an 18-month-old, had no more hair on her head than I have on my right kneecap, and had been gnawing on the same drool-coated graham cracker for roughly 3 hours. She also was kind enough to attract the attention of Steve, the handi-capable bagger/gofer, who stood in my way and babbled incoherently at the child for roughly 27 minutes.

Station Number 2 had an old man that was determined to use his Acme key-fob-card to save 11 cents on the three items he wished to purchase, but it wouldn't scan, and he couldn't figure out how to key in the number, so he had to enlist the help of the self-checkout manager. He was 2 people in front of me in line, and was still trying to buy his three cans of unseasoned chicken stock when I left the store.

Station Number 3 seemed to have the only person in the place that knew how to operate the machines, except for the part where she kept getting interfered with by Handi-capable Steve, who just HAD to get the grocery baskets at her station, and he had to get them NOW.

Station Number 4 had a woman who had been in line in front of the old man, but left the line to "go look at something," and returned roughly an hour later expecting to be able to reclaim her spot in line, and the kindly old chicken-stock-smelling man let her back in. (My ability to cause rapid, violent death through the power of my glare is as weak as ever.) She managed to scan in her items relatively easily, once she grasped the concept of "you have to put the item in the bag, not your purse," and even managed to insert a twenty into the machine on the 17th try. Thinking that she was nearly done, I began to edge towards that particular station, but no, she stood there for a while and counted her change, and then checked her receipt, and then frantically started pressing buttons on the touch-screen, and then gave up, and then dropped all her spare change out of her purse onto the floor around the station, and then I was going to fling my pork roast at her head, but luckily the woman at Station Number 3 managed to fight off Steve long enough to pay for her items and run out of the store, so I meandered over there.

I, of course, already had my Acme and debit cards in hand, and set a new record for checkout speed: 4 items, totalling $16.64 plus $50 cash back, in 74 seconds.

Then I went out the wrong door and had to walk the long way around to my truck.