Commissary Courtesies

A simple guide to Commissary Courtesies

1. When moving through the store, use the basic rules of traffic that good drivers use. Stay on the right side of the aisle. Pass on the left. Stop and look at intersections. If you are shopping with other people, you should either walk single file or spread out in the store. Three or more people walking abreast always seem to be the slowest moving individuals.

2. When not in motion, keep carts and humans together. If you are looking at an item, have your cart right next to you and up against the shelves so that other shoppers do not need to squeeze between your body and your diagonally parked cart.

3. Visit with your friends somewhere else. Yes I realize you haven't seen your husband's Msgt's wife since the last Ball, but the small aisles of the commissary are NOT the place to catch up.

4. If you change your mind about an item, you don't have to walk all the way back to the section where you picked it up. You can give it to the clerk at checkout and one of the store employees will get it back to its appropriate spot. Leaving the package of pork chops on top of the toilet paper results in a loss for the store and higher prices we all pay in compensation.

5. Take unhappy or misbehaving children out of the store until they are calm. The clerk at the front counter will keep an eye on your partially filled cart until you return. If your kids are extra rowdy today, perhaps you should take them home. If you have 4 kids and know you won't be able to control them all while shopping. Here's an idea, wait till your husband gets off work and leave them at home so you can go shopping alone.

6. Once you get in a line, you are done shopping. No fair leaving your cart to dash back after one more thing, or to send someone else to get it while you hold the place in line. If it is that important, you must leave the line and then rejoin after you have everything you need.

7. Speaking of lines, when using the express lanes an item is one bag, one box or one package. A plastic produce bag containing four oranges is one item. Twenty-five boxes of frozen Salisbury steak dinners are twenty-five items.

8. If you are paying for your groceries with a check, please fill out the date and the name of the store while the person ahead of you is being served. Waiting for the clerk to give you the total before even taking the checkbook out of your purse is stealing time from the people waiting behind you.

9. Tip the baggers. They work SOLELY off tips. No you don't have to give them $5... Something as small as a dollar or the change you dig out of the bottom of your purse will be fine for just bagging your groceries. Also, if you know you don't have any cash to tip them, DO NOT let them take your bags to you car for you. When doing so, you really need to pay them a dollar on top of whatever you were going to tip them in the commissary.

10. Finally if you take your own groceries to your car, you need to return your cart to the designated area. The commissary doesn't have parking lot attendants like regular grocery stores. Please do this as a curtisy to others.