Swipe it

The other day I went to a local department store to buy a couple of items. I got in line and started to wait patiently for my turn to come. The lady in front of me at first appeared to be normal, but I was about to find out differently. The cashier totaled all her items up and asked her for the amount. The lady opened her purse and pulled out "THE CHECKBOOK". Oh great, I thought, there goes another 5 minutes of my life waiting for someone to fill out a check. As she was writing out the check, the line continued to get longer and longer. I thought to myself, "Good thing I am going to use my credit card. I will be up and out of this line in no time". Finally, the lady was done and on her way. I stepped up with my items and the cashier rang up my stuff. I smiled and handed her my credit card. She looked at me and said, "You can swipe it right here", as she directed me to this little box. So I looked at the box, which was so scratched to hell, there was no possible way to read the instructions. Do I swipe it face up or face down? Do I have to hit the credit or debit button before I swipe or is the box smart enough to know? Do I swipe left to right or right to left? Does it matter? Anyway, I took my chances and swiped my card. Nope, didn't work. Ok, I flipped it over, and tried again. Nope, nothing. They cashier looked at me and said no, no, the other way. So I flipped it over again, and swiped. Nope, still didn't work. I looked back up at the cashier for some new instructions and she said, "Oh, he he, sometimes that doesn't work so well". She then took my card and swiped it on her register. It worked right away and she handed my card back. If she would have just taken my card in the beginning when I tried to hand it to her, it would have saved all that time. I didn't even want to swipe my own card! Next time, I am just going to write a check.