Grocery Store Self Check-Out

         Think before you choose self-check-out.  Once committed, there is no going back, no begging for someone to tell you the price of avocados, no asking for help with the bags.  It is just you and the machine. 
         
It knows you’re standing there, deciding between it and the human being at the regular checkout.  It might welcome you, roll an enticing Happy Face screen at you.  Don’t be fooled.  If you leave for the regular checkout, it will know.  It will remember.  You spot a neighbor with five kids and two grocery carts pull to the regular checkout.  Decision made.

         The machine asks you to scan your first item.  This is easy if the first item has a bar code.  All you have to do is find it.  It could be on the bottom, the side, or the packaging inside in which case you appear to be tasting the sliced turkey before you buy. 

         Your second item may be something truly complex, like bananas.  In some stores you punch “vegetable” and pictures come up.  You are relieved.  There are the bananas!  It tells you to put the bananas on the scanner.  You do.  The screen" asks you, are these plantains? organic? cultivated in the state of Maine by a university research program?  You look at your bananas.  The machine beeps with impatience.  You punch “regular” bananas.  It pauses as if to ascertain whether you are making a banana heist.  It tells you to put your bananas in a bag.
         
         Bear in mind as you proceed, once something is in the bag, it STAYS in the bag.  You are thinking, perhaps those bananas should go in another bag as the first bag has too much.  Don’t touch the bag unless you want the screaming duck of the alarm system downloaded to your I-Pod. 

         The machine, although it knows your birthdate, your maiden name, and the “D” you received in math, does not know when your cart is empty.  It prompts.  Is your cart empty?  Is your cart REALLY empty?  There are no more items in your cart?

         It asks for payment, which you’d forgotten all about and are about to pick up the bags.  Again, unless your curiosity about the model of this year’s police cruiser is of interest, don’t.

         The machine must be paid in coin first.  While you fumble for your wallet, the machine taps its foot impatiently.  Lights blink and an announcement is made, “We are awaiting payment,” loud enough for the loading dock to hear.  Always have a quarter in hand.  It’s like giving a baby a treat to stop crying.  The machine is sure you will pay now.  It waits for a $125.00 balance confident in your 25 cent down payment.  You might ask it for a second mortgage.

         Having made payment, you think you can leave.  Wrong.  Wait for your receipt, which takes ten seconds.  The time allows you to watch the neighbor with two grocery carts and five kids walk out.