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Investigative reporter, author and former federal agent Chuck Hustmyre has seen the ugly side of life, from A to Z. Here he gets the last word on politics, crime, local government and pop culture.

You know what hacks me off? So-called convenience stores.

The whole convenience store experience has become much less convenient than it used to be. You've got the surly store clerks who at best treat you like a minor annoyance, and at worst treat you with outright contempt. It's like you're asking them for a personal favor when you want to check out.

The other day I stopped in a Circle-K for a Diet Coke. After the clerk rang it up, she told me the price, but I had to ask her to repeat herself because I couldn't understand her with all the food in her mouth. I guess I interrupted her lunch break.

Yesterday, I'm standing at one of three checkout registers at a store near LSU. They all looked open to me. The registers were humming; the digital displays were lighted. The clerk walks past me without a word and stands behind the register at the far end of the counter. Another clerk, this one doing some type of inventory, tells me the far register is the only one open. Why couldn't the other clerk have mentioned that when she passed by me and saw the merchandise I wanted to buy lying on the counter?

How about the clerks who are talking on their cell phones and give you that look when you walk up to the counter? You know the one, the "What you bothering me for?" look. My brother-in-law told me he recently stopped in a store for a cold beverage and the clerk wouldn't check him out -- left him standing at the counter at least five minutes -- until she finished her cell phone conversation.

Then there are the customers. Not me. I'm talking about some of the other customers. You ever get stuck behind some guy trying to buy the cheapest quart of beer with small change? Not even quarters, I'm talking dimes, nickels and pennies. The line is backing up and this DT-ing SOB is playing shaky hands with his pennies.

How about someone writing a check for a buck-fifty, or a college kid trying to put a Coke and a bag of Skittles on his parents' credit card?

Then there are the hardcore gamblers and smokers. They're enough to make me want to move to the Bible Belt.

It's always an afterthought with them, like the Hershey bar or bag of chips they placed on the counter was the real reason they came into the store. It's only after the clerk rings up the purchase that the guy says, "Oh, yeah, I'd like seven crawfish tails, six lucky ladies, four bayou billions and three mega millions, oh, and these 16 Powerball numbers," as he hands over a penciled sheet containing every possible algorithmic combination of his kids' birthdays.

Get a couple of quickpicks, pal, or take it downtown to a casino.

Or how about the last-minute cigarette buyers? They're checked out, everything paid for. Then they remember they need a pack of Virginia Slim Ultralight short 100 menthols in a soft pack with biodegradable cellophane, or some other equally obscure pack of smokes the clerk has to spend 10 minutes searching for.

I say enough already. This is 7-11, not a specialty tobacco boutique. It's a coffin nail. Do they really taste that much different anyway? You're headed for the cancer ward. Why not take the express lane. Buy a pack of Lucky Strikes or filterless Camels. Just get out of my way.

Then again, patience has never been high on my list of virtues.

What do you say?

Chuck out.

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