Self-Checkout

I guess this gets filed under the “live and learn” category of life.

You see, I used to be adamantly against self-checkout at the grocery store. The reasons for my stubbornness were threefold:

1.) Doing the work of the store’s employees sets a dangerous precedent.

Sure, checking yourself out is convenient and fast, but how long until that concept is stretched even further? At what point will we customers be forced to stock the shelves, unload the trucks, and perform the dreaded “cleanup in aisle five,” all while the employees lounge around in hammocks and eat grapes that we’ve peeled and brought to them on silver platters? The whole thing is a slippery slope, and I, for one, am looking at the "big picture," by which I mean I don’t eventually want to be made to pick the apples from the fields before buying them. I mean, what do I look like, a pioneer?

2.) Doing the work of somebody else robs them of important life lessons.

If everybody were to check themselves out, how would the store employees ever learn that most people are complete jerks, or at least unbelievably inconsiderate? They’d never have to put up with the individual trying to use coupons that expired in 1982 for a product that hasn’t existed in decades, or the creepy guy batting his eyebrows and using creepy pick-up lines (“Your eyes are as blue as window cleaner!”), or the businessman with a stick concealed somewhere in their anatomy who believes they are so vital to their line of work that they have to talk – and by this I mean bellow - on their phone via bluetooth the entire time? (“Let’s close the Johnson account now! I know there’s no Johnson account! I just wanted to say that, because it makes me sound important!”)

3.) Only having a twofold excuse would be pretty lame.

Threefold just sounds so much better.

**********

Pretty solid reasoning, right? However, a recent experience has changed my tune. In fact, you could even call me a self-checkout convert.

It happened one day when each and every manned checkout line was absolutely stacked, to the point where it looked like I was in the DMV, except there was bread. Weighing my principles against my urge to wait in line for eight hours, I decided to go the self-checkout route. I bumbled around a bit, but I still managed to get it done in a fairly timely fashion, at which point the light bulb went on: That wasn’t half-bad! In fact, there were some advantages to it that I’d never previously considered:

1.) No cashier to make awkward conversation with.

I’m one of those guys who doesn’t want to talk to the cashier, no matter how nice they are. That’s just my nature, right or wrong. (Probably wrong.) It just seems like every time they force conversation upon me, it ends up awkward:

Cashier: Five packages of Oreos? Are you having a party?
Me: No.

or…

Cashier: Did you find everything you were looking for?
Me: Your eyes are as blue as window cleaner.

2.) You get to make the machine beep

I’ll admit it: scanning stuff is kinda fun.

3.) Nobody will bruise your apples

This is what finally did it for me. As I gently placed my apples down on the scanner, I swear I heard a heavenly chorus break out from above.