Pigs are flying! CVS on 9th Street is being renovated!

If you're a regular customer of CVS on 9th Street, you'll know a few things to be true: 

1. That musky smell that hits you when you first walk in comes from the filthy carpet, that looks like it hasn't been cleaned since it was first installed.

2. They pull the seasonal candy shortly after midnight of any holiday, so you can never get discount Candy Corn or Cadbury Creme Eggs the next day. I'm sure a lot of places do this, but damn, it's annoying. 

3. If you want something off the shelf, you'll probably have to remove that rack of merchandise waiting to be stocked first to get at it. 

4. The cashiers are total nightmares. Like, detached, disgruntled, despondent dicks who spend more time gossiping about their relationship troubles than helping you. They probably could use a manager to guide them a bit, but I'm pretty sure CVS on 9th Street does not employ a single manager.

5. There's always a line at the register, no matter what time of day. Seriously, I went at 4am once to get cold medication, and waited behind 5 other people for the one dude to ring me up. 

Well wouldn't you know it. Someone somewhere along the way decided to finally fix some of the flaws, and CVS is actually in the middle of a major renovation. It's been going on for the past couple of weeks, and should be complete in early July (work's been happening overnight). The dirty carpet may not be replaced, but here's some things you can expect, according to an employee who filled me in:

• An expanded food selection with plenty of those energy drinks that people apparently really want after working out at the YMCA. 
• A reduced photo area. Yeah, CVS's photo center is all digital now. Want to develop actual film? Go somewhere else.
• Three registers. That's a cutback from the five or six registers that existed before. But considering there was always one person working them, this shouldn't be a big deal. Also, because they now have...
• ...Self-checkout!!! That's right! No more waiting in endless lines! You can now ring your own shit up! Hooray! I'm not a huge fan of self-checkout counters in stores. It's the same reason I don't like wedge salads. (Why do I have to do all the work here?) But if it helps me get in and out of CVS without waiting in some epically long line, then by all means, I'm on board. 

Sure, these changes may not fix all of CVS's problems, but it's a major step in the right direction, no? And who knows - maybe with the self-checkout counters, the employees won't be so perpetually pissed-off and might actually smile once and awhile! 

What do you think of the 9th Street CVS rennovations? Anything you want to see added? And would you like to see other stores adding self-checkout?