Well, knowing my partner's tendency to ramble on about just about anything, and the fact that I'm the one mostly running this thing anyways, I decided to make this first rant more informative than otherwise.

Welcome to Magnificently Outrageous Rants on Nonsensical Stuff, or, as we like to call it, MORONS. We chose MORONS because, well, we are, and so we made up an acronym to account for it. This strip is starting out as a one-a-week, but we may move up to two or even three a week, if we feel we can do it.

Now, before someone starts yelling at me about my drawing style, let me just say that I know I can't draw, but we just felt we had something to say when we started this strip. No, wait, scratch that, we didn't actually have anything to say. So why are we doing this again? Oh, well, life is short, and you only get one chance to make a brand new comic on the first day of the new Millennium.

I'm going to apologize again, this time for the content of today's strip. First off, that twinkie joke is just bad, and I won't go so far as to repeat it in public. Second I realize that I might tick off some Republicans with this, but we're going to try to keep it non-biased, or completely biased, you pick, but both of us being Liberal/Democrat that's going to be just a little tough.

For my first rant, I'm going to talk about my job. I'm a "customer service clerk" at the local Giant Eagle grocery store, which basically means that I'm the guy who takes the food and puts it in the bag for customers. My other duty is cleaning up the parking lot, making sure all the shopping carts get from there to the lobby. Sounds easy enough, doesn't it?

Don't be fooled.

First, let's start with the bagging end of it. You'd think that the job would be fairly inocuous. Just take the groceries, put them in the bag. I'd be thrilled if even half the customers I get would let me do anything remotely close to that. First, there are the people who refuse to let me bag their groceries at all. They'll always go, "I'll do it myself." Well, gee, why don't you make me feel as if what I'm doing to make money is even more pointless and stupid than I had originally thought? Why the hell do they need me there at all if people are just going to stand there and bag their own groceries?

Second, there are the people who get all nitpicky about the kinds of bags you use. I can't stand it when people needlessly request "paper in plastic." I mean, who the hell thought of that idea, anyway? Didn't we invent plastic because it was better than the stuff we had before it? Paper bags shouldn't even exist anymore, in my opinion. The people who think they need them really don't, most of the time. "Is plastic all right?" I'll ask them. Of course, they'll all say, "No, I like paper, plastic breaks too easily." Well, now, let's take a look at what you're buying there, Mr. Customer... Hmm, let's see here: two bags of potato chips and a peach. Well yeah, I can sure see your point. That whole pound and a half of groceries you've got there will surely tear through conventional plastic bags with its mighty gravitational force. In fact, let's not even take our chances with paper, I think what we need here is a friggin' reinforced steel BOX to put this stuff in. Just to be safe, y'know.

So, anyway, now let's shift tracks and talk about the unimaginable hazards of shagging carts at the friendly local grocery store. All I have to say is that I think we'd do rather well to make it more difficult for people to get and keep a driver's license in this country. I don't think it's too much to ask that before you try to do something like buy groceries, you should at least first possess the presence of mind to be able to learn how to get yourself there without being a potential threat to everyone within a ten foot radius. I can't even count the number of cars I see every day I'm out there who can't figure out who should go first at the three-way intersection in front of the store. I was almost tempted to jump out in the middle of the traffic and start directing it myself.

Another thing that pisses me off is that people like to use me as their personal excuse to be lazy. "Oh, I don't have to put this cart back in the return, the cart-boy will come and get it!" That's precisely the type of mentality I'm talking about. We provide the friggin' cart returns for people to put their carts back into, but apparently, even that is too much to ask for people to use, let alone (oh, God forbid) actually wheeling the carts all the way back to the store's lobby. People see me in the parking lot and they feel quite welcome just throwing their shopping carts wherever it so pleases them, because they know it's my job to pick up after them as if they were a bunch of drooling, helpless two-year-olds. The people in the lobby are just as bad, too. When I'm wheeling a new batch of carts in there to put them up against the wall to keep the place full, people will just stand there and stare at me. They'll keep on staring until I acknowledge them, and give them a cart to use. I have two questions about this: 1) Since when have I become a valet for shopping carts? 2) What's wrong with YOUR arms, buddy? Nowhere in my job description does it say that I'm supposed to physically hand a cart to every jerk who walks into the store wanting one. For some reason, the carts I'm holding always seem to look more attractive to the customers than the ones waiting by the wall for them. They'll interrupt me when I'm bringing in like six at a time, and further hold up me and everyone else trying to enter by making me personally deliver the cart into their hands for them. And then there are the even dumber people, who will spend a good minute or so glancing back and forth between the carts I'm holding and the ones on the wall, as if it's some sort of world-shattering moral decision they have to make. JUST TAKE A FRICKIN' CART! Taking one of my carts doesn't piss me off quite as much as when the customers just stand there like a bunch of morons trying to decide which group of carts is more personally desirable to them. Does it really matter?! I mean, the wheels on all the carts are equally screwed up and broken... I should know, I'm the one who has to push them all back and forth all night.

My third and final rant is about the express line at the grocery store. Don't let the name fool you, because it isn't fast. I think I've pinpointed the reason why, too. Two words: credit cards. It's totally pointless for people to be able to use credit cards in the express line; why would you not have enough money on you to pick up a candy bar and a cup of coffee? It occurs to me that if you don't have that much cash, you should be in an unemployment office or welfare clinic instead of trying to buy food at the grocery store. It's amazing how much time I've wasted during my breaks trying to just buy a cup of chili to eat in the middle of my shifts. People who go through the express line don't even know how to use their credit cards the right way. You'd think they'd eventually learn, but NO, they still have to slide the damn card through three different wrong ways before they finally get it right. Then, they have to forget their four-digit code multiple times. I always feel like waving my five dollar bill in the air and yelling, "HEY, LOOK AT ME! I HAVE MONEY! I CAN PAY YOU RIGHT NOW AND LEAVE!"

After having read about the evil horrors I have to go through every day at work, I hope you will all heed my warning. Don't make the same mistake as me! Get yourselves nice part-time jobs in other quality establishments, like McDonald's or Taco Bell! Stay away from grocery stores! And for those of you who have already fallen into the evil trap of commercial food service: By all means, stay in school! Study hard! Or you may be bagging and shagging for the rest of your life as a career! Imagine the horrors which may await you! Repent now, there's still time!