Living the Dream!

As a little girl, I absolutely loved playing grocery store! I adored fancy cash register toys! The more beeping, dinging, clicking, and swiping it could do - the better! I could spend hours and hours playing "cashier." If you had told me about the future invention of the Self Check-out, I would have looked forward to it in eager anticipation of living the dream!!!

FAST FORWARD 18 YEARS...

I no longer have such a starry opinion of the Self Check-out. I now believe that these machines were invented, so that stores no longer have to employ cashiers. No, you (the shopper) get to do all the work, and then you pay them for your troubles....GENIUS!!!! I wish I could say that I had someone who cleans my house each week then slips me $100....sadly, that is not the case!

My most recent encounter with this frustrating piece of equipment was yesterday - after work. I decided that I would go pick up a few necessities "real quick" before I went home. Unless your definition of "real quick" is 1 hour......my plan did not succeed. My shopping only took about 20 minutes, and the rest of that blessed hour (40 minutes for those of you who are a little slow with the math) was spent in the self check-out line.

Since our local Wal-Mart only employs about 3 cashiers at a time (2 to actually serve as cashiers and 1 to single-handedly run all of the very needy self check-out lanes) the lines tend to be a little long at the "real cashiers." So, I found myself scooting into a much shorter line at the self check-out. The line was moving along at a fairly brisk pace, and then the person in front of me paid. His change was being spit out of the machine...then it stopped!

I decided to hang around because I was next, and I had already taken all of my groceries out of my cart and put them on the belt. The dreaded "CSM" was called to the scene and started unlocking things and pulling out drawers of cash... The cash drawers were (obviously) empty, so she started taking apart more stuff. After unlocking about a hundred things, she finally found a box with a lot of money in it which she proceeded to sort. Her money sorting skills made me realize that she had probably never worked in a bank...it took forever! She finally got all the money sorted, filled the money drawers, slammed all the drawers, locked all the doors, and it was my turn. Finally!

I have gotten to be a pretty good cashier...probably from all that childhood practice. My scanning skills are far better than most. Unfortunately, it was while I was in the process of scanning and bagging that the bagging system decided to mess up. Somehow, the bags stopped opening when you pulled each full bag away. I resorted to trying to very carefully pick each bag open every time I needed a new bag - this took some time and patience. I finally finished all my scanning and bagging! I didn't even have to pause that often for approval from the lead cashier. Let the paying process begin - "YES, I'm almost done," I thought.

I took out my stack of coupons (this is my new thing), and started scanning those in. Some warning came up, and the lead cashier came over to help me scan my coupons and stuff them into the appropriate box. After this had been done, I tried to pay (cash of course), and all of my bills were spit back out...ALL of them! After shoving bills in and watching them come right back out for a long while, an error message appeared on my machine. This situation was far too complicated for the cashier to handle - time to page the CSM! After punching, smacking, and shaking the machine (hey...I would have gladly done that!) the CSM told me that she was sorry, but I was going to have to unpack all my bags and start over! I should have kept my mouth shut at that point, but I decided to ask about my coupons! She proceeded to open up the coupon lock box, and told me to sort through all the coupons in there. As I sifted through all the coupons that had been used that day, I wondered if it was worth it.

After rescuing all my coupons, the nervous cashier guy and I attempted to unbag and rescan all of my groceries with his little hand-gun. I think he thought I was going to explode with anger at any moment! The process was going smoothly until we got to my fruit. As you all know, fruit must be weighed, so it is, therefore, impossible to scan fruit with a hand-gun. Thus, the CSM (who was, apparently, the brains of the operation) was again called to the scene. Feeling a little sorry for me, she said to just give me the fruit for free. We scanned my precious coupons, I paid, and I was OUT OF THERE!!!! Proud that my temper never flared up in an obvious way and that I had gotten some free fruit, I walked outside...

and IT WAS RAINING!!!!!