Soundtrack to Life

Many are aware of my distaste for the self-checkouts at grocery stores across America. I know many of you are thrilled to live out your high school dreams of not only scanning but also bagging your own groceries. I however, have a slightly different view. I don't think I would mind the self-checkout if there were more than one real cashier available at any given time. But as it stands now, grocery stores have two employees. The one cashier on duty from 8am - 4pm and the guy that restocks the produce. No one else works there. So here's my signature line: "If I wanted to scan groceries, I would have filled out an application." The problem is that the computer is never happy with the way you scan things and God forbid you try to scan a second item without putting the first one in the bag first. Then you get berated by the computer in front of all of the other customers. Although, they probably aren't paying attention to you because they are scrolling through the massive list of produce trying to figure out how to ring up Guatemalan apples. Secondly, the computer finds it necessary to shout out the price of the item you are purchasing with every scan. I don't know why this makes me uncomfortable, but maybe it's because I don't want people to know how much I am paying for canned soup even though it is probably less than what everyone else pays because I am the cheapest person alive. The best is when you get in the self check-out line to buy alcohol because the line in the real-life person check out is four men deep. You need approval for this purchase of course so the light on your station goes on and rings obnoxiously and you wait for the produce restocking guy to run over and verify that you are of age. Then, when you are done scanning items you have to run through a list of twenty questions before you can pay. "Do you have any coupons?" "How would you like to pay?" "I'm sorry, I didn't understand, please tell me again." I want to put the computer on silent. Now you move on to bag the groceries that you just scanned. With all of the work I am doing, I feel like Kroger should pay me to go to the grocery store. My last point of contention is this: If there are only two employees on average working at the grocery store so that payroll costs have been significantly decreased, how is it that the cost of food is still increasing faster than downloads of Hannah Montana? Someone is making out like a bandit with all the extra cash and it's not me.

Here is a video of someone in the self check-out line at Giant. I don't know why I thought this was so funny but I was crying while watching it. I think it is just the absurdity that it takes so long and the person can't even scan batteries because they don't weigh enough once she has removed two for her camera. Painful, but funny.