On line in the Gap

I was in the Gap (on 6th and 34th) the other day waiting in line to pay for some stuff, when this chick in front of me starting to chat. She said stuff like "Nice shirt" and "My boyfriend likes that color" and other uninteresting bits of chit chat. After a bit, she was the second person in the line (I was third) and the person who was paying was trying to use a check. Now, the scene was right out of that commercial where the lady had to pull out identification and the check would just not go through, and it was really taking a lot of time.

So we are waiting there, and the girl I am talking to says something like "Of course she has to pay by check".

She said this loud enough so that the person paying heard her. So the paying woman said something like "Do you always talk about people or just those paying by check?" and the girl I am talking to said "Hey, free speech, lady" to which she responded "I choose to pay by check".

At that point the cashier told her that her check was just not going through and she would have to pay some other way. It was all quite annoying.

Lev Taffler (not his real name) makes a point in his rather silly book Fair New World that there ought to be seperate lines for men and women (well, he doesn't quite make this point, but you can take that away from reading the book). This is really a good idea. Call me sexist, but shopping (and paying) is similar to going to the bathroom - men just happen to take less time than women to do it. That is just the way things are. Possibly we can have it so that you can only pay for stuff in the men's department in the men's department, and the same for women's stuff. That would go a long way to making shopping a more plesant experience for male costomers. It would not eliminate the problem, but it would help a lot.