Paper or plastic?

I'll wear high heels and a hat to the grocery store - if you scan my stuff for me!

The other night on the way home, I stopped at my grocery store to pick up a few things. Bread. Eggs. Milk. Watercress, which I never found. Some feta cheese. My favorite Weight Watchers fudge bars, which I couldn’t find, either.

I pushed my cart of ten items or less up toward the front of the store and stopped dead in my tracks. Where the heck had the checkout lines gone? There were only three lanes still standing. The others had been replaced by those do-it-yourself check-out stands like they have at Home Depot. Not wanting to look or seem old, I pushed my cart up to one of the computerized lanes. Hell, I can do this.

My first problem came when I couldn’t find any price sticker on the bananas. The young girl watching over these lanes had to walk over and show me how, with only three pushes on the touch-screen, I could find the price. Thanks, I said, feeling like a Golden Girl.

I filled up one bag and stuck it in my cart. You would have thought I had just stolen it. The computer screen started screaming at me, something about a bag being removed illegally and how the Gestapo would shortly be at my side. I had to look over at the girl, again, and she had to walk over, again, and clear something on the computer before I could continue. Sorry, I said. Yup, I’m a Golden Girl.

Then came the flowers. Two bunches of gerbera daisies. I couldn’t find the bar codes on those, either, and once again, young-girl-watching over us had to leave her post to help me.

By the time I finished checking out, fishing for my frequent shopper card in my new wallet, figuring out how to scan it into the computer, scanning my debit card – the wrong way, then the right way - I had been standing there for more than 10 minutes.  TO CHECK OUT FEWER THAN 10 ITEMS!

I know this is progress. But I already pump my own gas, make my own salad at the salad bar and pick my own pumpkins at Halloween. Is it too much to ask, after a long day at work, on a Saturday when my cart overflows with a week’s worth of food, for a clerk to scan my groceries for me?

I swear I’m either going to boycott this store or stand with the old folks in the “old-fashioned lanes.”

Paper or plastic?

It doesn’t matter.

Just scan my shit for me, please.