I am slightly tired today, having carted the less than excited Wall-dog to his last obedience training. Our recent move and travel during rush hour made the trip quite a process, but we have a blue ribbon and a chewy toy to show for it!
After returning from the almost four hour excursion for a one hour session, I had to nip to the grocery store to pick up a few essentials.
- 1 1/2 lbs of fresh salmon for dinner (I had all the other makings)
- package of hair ties
- 3 energy save lightbulbs
- package of condoms
- 1/2 gallon milk
Now, I thought about my mish mash of items as I meandered sleepily up to the register. My mind told me that I am very lucky to have mastered the beast of the self checkout, and that no one is more grateful than I that it exists. Not only am I spared other people man handling my goods, but I also am not forced to go through the paces of making small chit chat with the kid I used to babysit for in high school as he eyes my dubious assortment of purchases.
As the waves of relief washed over me like a peaceful ocean, I realized that moving back to my home town may have made me more jaded. More appreciative of automatons who do my bidding with no pleasantries or judging required. Am I a horrible person? Way gone are the days of being all pally with Mr. Hunter the butcher and asking him for his wifey's recipe for lamb stew.
Now it seems that humans just want to scan their swill while taking orders from a electronic lady-voice who sounds pissed as hell that she has to live in that machine and announce that you've just scanned a 12 pack of condoms.
fresh salmon
ReplyDeletehair ties
lightbulbs
condoms
milk
What kind of party you having over there?
Perhaps Sigourney is pissed because nobody's been giving her the business lately.
ReplyDeleteSounds like somebody had a hot date night planned. I'm just trying to figure out where the milk fits in...hmmmmm.
ReplyDeleteI love the self-checkout. The most annoying part of the regular ones is the person who bags my groceries. They always put two items in each bag, and they never seem to put like items with each other. I like to have things in boxes with other things in boxes, and things that go in the fridge with other things that go in the fridge. Hm... that sounds a little OCD, actually.
ReplyDeleteI am so guilty of this too! I will avoid meaningless contact with other humans as much as possible. Nice shopping list, hubs and I have discovered the ease of ordering our condoms online from amazon! You can order in bulk, and you don't have to endure people walking by and staring at you while you make your condom selection.
ReplyDeleteThe self checkout at the A&P by me bites my beard (in a bad way). Sometimes, seemingly for no reason whatsoever, it will have to wait for the Automaton running the whole piece to push a button. Just one little button push; however, there is no proceeding until it gets pressed. It gets frustrating when you're buying only three things and Thing 1 and Thing 2 scan, in the bag, then the computer thinks I'm trying to steal thing 3 and makes me wait for the guy to 'verify' that the item is what it says it is. But he doesn't verify, he just pushes the button. Unless he's telling someone where the bananas are or texting his Automaton friends. So I'm standing there waiting for him to push the button, with Thing 3 in my hands, which happens to be laxatives or porn or Ellio's Pizza or anything borderline to extremely embarrassing when I should be driving out of the parking lot by now, instead I'm waiting for the little guy to stop picking his nose and push the button so I can pay for my porn filled laxative crappy pizza and go home. All the while, people behind me are getting frustrated that *T'm* taking forever, and judging me for my constipation/perversion/lack of taste in pizza when in reality, it's not my fault.
ReplyDeleteI hate that guy.
Oh I hate self checkouts! Something always crops up when I make my way to one. :(
ReplyDeleteI am a self-checkout impresario. I can whip through that sucker like a professional checker-outer...altho I haven't ever checked through condoms. I fear that I may upset the electronic lady and she may burp or fart or something. You see -- right now she and I have a cozy relationship.
ReplyDeleteI'm ALL about the self-checkout. But some employee is always standing there watching and ultimately starts to help, which might be company policy, but honestly.... if I'm not struggling, and I'm at the self-checkout, it means I want to check MYSELF out.
ReplyDeletePS I gave you an award on my blog. :)
@Pat Tillet: It's more than a party. It's an event.
ReplyDelete@Jordan: Maybe so! I didn't think about it that way. Also she was turned down to narrate that 'Life' series. Turned down for Oprah. That's gotta hurt.
@Chicken: Milk is for coffee in the morning, because little sleep was had. Heeheeheeeee!
@Jessi B: Thanks for the tip! I will be sure to check the amazon thing out. Although, I don't think that I'll stop using the automated checkouts.
@Carl: Hahahahahahahaha. Start your own blog now please. Also, why is Elio's pizza embarrassing?
@Another David: I thought of this when writing this post, but totally forgot to put it in! Perchance I am a bit OCD too because I have a very specific way I like everything bagged when I go home. Because otherwise some perishable always gets forgotten with the toilet paper and then there's the inevitable questionable smell....
ReplyDelete@Johana: Oh no! I am so sorry you don't benefit from the lack of human interaction at the store! But I would like to hear these catastrophic stories of self checkout gone awry.
@Jerry: Sometimes I do feel like I have upset the lady within the machine. Usually when I need to scan a very essential item, like toilet paper through and she rejects the scan 11 times and I have to wait for the fix-it person to come help me out. They always give me that withering 'I can even scan toilet paper' look that makes me feel all inadequate. Lesson learned: Do not anger the grocery robot lady.
@Anabelle: THAAANKS! I'm going to check it out right now!
You must never have eaten ellio's pizza.
ReplyDeleteWherever I have the option of self checking, I will always use it, for both the reasons that you described. So you are either not a horrible person, or we are both horrible people. :)
ReplyDeletePS. I LOVE Keroppi!! I don't think he has his own wine, but he really should. :)
Interesting shopping list there. LOL!
ReplyDelete