# Priority checkouts



## JohnBoy (Oct 25, 2009)

I'm obviously not asking Google the right question as the answer is not coming up.

As far as priority treatment at the likes of supermarket checkouts is concerned, what age defines a child?

There is a specific answer to this questionb which is displayed on the wall at our vet. Unfortunately, unlike the conversation around our lunch table, the vet is closed. 

Ideas anyone?


----------



## smudges (May 2, 2013)

Maybe I'm missing something, but why on earth would a child get priority treatment at a supermarket? Actually, why would anyone? 10 items or less excepted, of course.


----------



## JohnBoy (Oct 25, 2009)

smudges said:


> Maybe I'm missing something, but why on earth would a child get priority treatment at a supermarket? Actually, why would anyone? 10 items or less excepted, of course.


First to say that I have now established that the cutoff age for a child is 2 years.

I'm afraid that is something you will have to get used to once you move over Smudges. It is not just supermarket checkouts where this is the system. You will find similar priority queues in many shops and businesses including my vet! In establishments that operate the system, priority is given to the elderly and infirm, pregnant women and anyone with a child up to the age of two. 

Whether you agree with it or not, I'm afraid that is the system that we have to work with. It is rather galling though when you get the usual bunch of chancers who abuse the system. This discussion started round our lunch table when I mentioned a lengthy queue that I was in that was bypassed by a woman claiming priority. She walked into the shop, saw the length of the queue, picked up her obviously 5 or 6 year child in her arms, walked to the front of the queue and demanded priority treatment... AND got it! It was amazing to see that once she was being served, the child sprung legs and started to run around the shop, as if to rub it in. 

I'm generally OK with the system, but fail to understand why a baby soundly asleep in a buggie should qualify for priority. No doubt there will be plenty of mothers coming back on that one!

BTW Smudges, there is generally no aisle for 10 items or less. We do have self-service checkouts for those folk with baskets rather than trolleys though.


----------



## travelling-man (Jun 17, 2011)

I'm embarrassed to say that I've now twice been waved to the front of the queue because of my age & they all made the reason perfectly clear by pointing to the sign at the checkout.


----------



## JohnBoy (Oct 25, 2009)

travelling-man said:


> I'm embarrassed to say that I've now twice been waved to the front of the queue because of my age & they all made the reason perfectly clear by pointing to the sign at the checkout.


I know what you mean TM. I was on a train earlier this year when a young German lad put my bag on the rack and on a bus a young lass tried to give me her seat. Until then I never realised I looked that old! :sad:


----------



## dancebert (Jun 4, 2015)

smudges said:


> Maybe I'm missing something, but why on earth would a child get priority treatment at a supermarket? Actually, why would anyone? 10 items or less excepted, of course.


Same reason some groups can have priority treatment at other places. That foundation of that reason is evident in the Constitution, the names and nature of the political parties that have dominated the legislature since the Carnation Revolution, and the selection of Carnations as a symbol (hint - they're red). It's a reflection of a philosophy expressed in a sentence: From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.


----------



## smudges (May 2, 2013)

I feel I've come across that philosophy somewhere before.....not been tremendously successful, as I recall.......


----------



## dancebert (Jun 4, 2015)

smudges said:


> I feel I've come across that philosophy somewhere before.....not been tremendously successful, as I recall.......


Tragically unsuccessful when it's the core of their political and economic systems. Effective when it's an ancillary principal, e.g. in social democracies.


----------

