Customer Etiquette

My husband, of all things has been most disappointed lately since he has decided he wants to know me better and become a more regular reader of my blog that I have not posted anything with much depth lately. This evidenced by the fact that I told you all on Friday to go Elf Yourself and have had nary a post all weekend.
La la la la life goes on. I love my blog - but it is not the be all end all of my existence. I am saving my writing energies for screenwriting. Maybe it's just something I'm dabbling in - or maybe I'll actually finish it - but I find I only have so much creative juice to go around.
However, this list has been writing itself in my head and I thought that since it is the holiday season we could all use a refresher of good etiquette when standing in the checkout line.

• Don't use hand signals to gesture me when you are on your cell phone and expect me to know what they mean. I didn't get that kind of training. I don't mind if you're on your phone but if you need to communicate something to me, please do so clearly.
  
• If you eat something as you are shopping and have yet to pay for it, and ditch the empty container, that is stealing.
  
• If your child has sucked on an item in your cart, please do NOT hand it to me. Hold it in the air with the UPC suspended in mid air so I can use my hand scanner.
• When your child spits at the shopping bags, debit/credit machine or any other part of my work area, it isn't funny.
  
• If you ask me where something is, and I cannot immediately answer, please do not roll your eyes as if I am a moron. Can you truly expect me to have the entire inventory and location of every item in our store? (I will try to put you in touch with someone who does know - and that is really the best I can do.)

Be kind to people working in stores this holiday season. Remember if you find it stressful to be out in the throngs shopping how much more stressful it must be to be there working in that same environment.