Publix is where shopping is a pleasure. Mostly.

The store does its part: The floors shine, the subs are delicious, and the air conditioning could preserve a mammoth.

The other shoppers, though, are where the pleasure sometimes gets tested.

Here are the rude Publix habits that turn the person behind you into a kettle on slow boil, documented by everyone who’s ever stood there.

The Aisle Five Reunion

Two carts meet in front of the pasta sauce, and suddenly it’s a class reunion.

Donna and Carol haven’t seen each other since church, and they have updates. Grandkids, hip surgeries, what happened to the neighbor’s mango tree.

The carts angle together, sealing the aisle shut.

You hover. You say “excuse me” in a low voice.

They smile warmly and move four inches.

It’s the friendliest roadblock in America, and it convenes daily under the green awning.

The marinara can wait. Carol’s news can’t.

Snowbird season makes it worse, because half the reunions involve someone who’s been gone since April.

This shopper would like to try the Boar’s Head ham. Then the turkey, but shaved thinner. Then the other turkey, for comparison.

Each sample gets a thoughtful chew and a follow-up question, like a sommelier working through a flight.

Behind them, six people clutch deli tickets going soft in their hands.

A man who only wants a half pound of Swiss begins to question whether he should go home without it.

The deli folks, bless them, never crack. The line, less blessed, cracks plenty.

The BOGO Sprint

In Florida, the BOGO rule is simple: Buy two, or there’s no deal. Inevitably, someone realizes they’re missing an item while checking out.

The cashier scans one box of Kleenex at full price, and the realization lands.

“Hang on, that’s supposed to be buy one get one.”

And then, the four words that freeze a checkout lane solid: “I’ll go grab it.”

Off they jog, past the bakery, into the wilderness of aisle nine. The lane holds its breath. The cashier makes gentle small talk.

Veterans grab both boxes the first time. The rest of us watch a grown adult speed-walk back, clutching a box of Kleenex like a relay baton.

There’s a doubles version of this event, too.

The shopper stays put and dispatches a spouse instead, then directs the search by shouted coordinates across the store.

“Aisle six! No, the OTHER Kleenex box! The one with the pink flowers!”

The lane becomes an audience to a show nobody wanted to watch.

The Express Lane Mathematician

The sign says 10 items or less.

The cart up ahead says otherwise.

This shopper has performed creative accounting. Six limes count as one item, because they’re all limes.

The two cases of water are “basically one thing.”

By their math, that’s a nine-item trip. By everyone else’s, that’s a full grocery haul in the express lane.

Nobody confronts them. This is Publix, not a courtroom.

But every single person behind them is silently recounting the cart, twice, and reaching the same verdict.

The cashier scans it all with a smile.

The jury behind them is still groaning about it in the parking lot.

The Checkbook Time Machine

Everything has gone smoothly at checkout. The total appears. And then, from the depths of a handbag, emerges a checkbook.

The pen comes out next, clicked with ceremony.

The date gets asked, then double-checked.

The amount gets written in cursive that belongs in a museum, and the register line travels back to 1987.

Sometimes there’s no checkbook, just the exact-change expedition. The total is $42.17, and somewhere in that coin purse, 17 cents is hiding.

The folks behind them tap their cards against their legs, helplessly.

The check gets recorded in the register, the ledger balanced by hand. Time resumes.

The Mid-Aisle Cart Abandoner

The cart sits diagonally across the aisle, unmanned, like its owner was raptured mid-shop.

The owner is three aisles away, squeezing avocados, fully at peace.

Their cart, meanwhile, has created a traffic pattern that requires a three-point turn and an apology to a stranger.

You can’t move it, because touching another shopper’s cart feels somehow against the rules of polite society.

So you squeeze past the gap, sucking in like you’re sneaking out of a wedding.

By the frozen section, you’ll meet the cart again. It travels alone. It answers to no one.

And somehow, by the time you reach checkout, it’s ahead of you in line, reunited with its owner, who is about to remember something about a BOGO.

The Receipt Auditor

The transaction is complete. The bags are loaded. And the shopper takes one step forward, stops at the end of the register, and begins the audit.

Line by line, the receipt gets reviewed like a contract.

Reading glasses come out. A question forms about the price of the blueberries, and the cashier is summoned back into a transaction that everyone believed was finished.

Sometimes they’re right, and the Publix Promise even gets them the item free.

But there’s a bench by the exit made for exactly this.

The next customer’s groceries are stacking up like planes over Orlando, and the auditor stands their ground, one blueberry dispute from victory.