We're not so great either. My mom is just one of those people who spends hours going through ads, then on a shopping day she'll go to five different stores to hit all the sales and bulk up on the sale stuff. And she'll show up at the cash register with a big fat wad of coupons. It's really quite impressive.

When I had to drive her car for a while - because mine had died - she sometimes had me run errands for her and pick up groceries with her debit card. She'd just tell me "this store has a sale on [brand] diced tomatoes. Get 20 cans." Then I'd show up at the cash register and the cashier would look at me like I was nuts. Or maybe it was more that I was afraid they'd look at me like I was nuts, so I avoided eye contact and mumbled something about errands for my mother.

Actually, the only cashier I can think of who has criticized a purchase of mine before is this guy who works at the grocery store down the street from my boyfriend's place. I had bought all the ingredients to make a berry cake, but had forgotten the whipped cream. So on the way over, I stopped for whipped cream. This cashier is around my age, nice, funny, always says snarky things to the boyf and I when we pick up groceries. He's seen us in the store together a lot. So I get up to him and he's like, "now, I don't want to criticize, but... just whipped cream? Really?"