Leftover Ink: War of the Machines

To begin with, I was a little anxious about my purchase anyway. I’m not exactly “handy” around the house. I can do the basics, but only if I have very clear-cut instructions. In this way, I’m different from my father, who had a tendency to dive into a project before really sketching it out. Ask me about how he tried to cut the wires that makes the car beep when you don’t have your seatbelt on. When he was done, the car still beeped, and it didn’t have heat.  

In any case, I pushed my cart up to the checkout line to find that two lines were backed up, and one line had no one waiting. I understood that it was open because that line was self-checkout. I went on ahead because I didn’t have that many items, and I’m certainly no techno-phobe.

It is a unusual how little self-checkouts have expanded.  In this economy, any time a business can cut costs, they normally will. Growing up, I expected I would be working the checkouts—granted, I also expected a robot to be doing my shopping, but that’s neither here-nor-there.

The electronic or self-checkout and I normally get along okay, but I must say they are a little pushy. “Put item in bag,” it commands in its Star Trek monotone. “There are too many items, you must put more items in a bag,” it continues.

“I have a weight sensor on my tray and I can tell you haven’t bagged anything,” the checkout almost pleads.

If you don’t do what the testy electronic checkout lady demands, she starts getting personal. Either she refuses to scan anything else, or she starts critiquing your purchases.

“I have a weight sensor and you don’t need cookies,” the grocery electronic checkout sneers.

“You know that your choice of light bulbs is killing the planet,” the hardware store checkout insinuates.

Happily, the electronic purchasing machine at the movie theater doesn’t judge me—although I do wish that it would give a fair warning if the movie isn’t very good.

 I consistently use the electronic check-out for several reasons. To begin, there are some days I just can’t deal with people. More importantly, I refuse to be beaten by a machine. I've seen too many movies where the robots turn on us.

One day, I’ll manage to make my purchases without the tired scorn of the checkout attendant who has to come over to the electronic checkout to manually scan things once I’ve passed my tolerance with the electronic checkout—or, more likely, the secret soul inside the electronic checkout machine has lost its tolerance with me.

Inevitably, the 20-year-old cashiers will sigh and fix the problem, secretly wondering why old fogies  like me don’t just go through the normal line where there are living, breathing people who’ll check things for you.

Well, yes—that would be the easy solution, but I’m still bitter over not having a robot do my shopping for me.