We Interrupt the Serious Issues...

to talk about self-scan lanes at the grocery store. Note that, although I can't begin to understand the distinction, I am talking ONLY about self-scan lanes at the grocery store. The self-scan lanes at WalMart and such seem to work fine.

First, the lanes are set up in such a way that you can fill two bags on the weight-sensitive platform. That would be fine, except that when you have more than two bags worth of groceries, the machine shuts down every time you put one in your cart. It yells, "Item removed from bagging area! Please return item before continuing!" over and over again until you either return the item to the shelf (leaving no room for the remaining groceries) or a human comes over and bypasses the machine by moving through several screens and entering secret codes.

Now, if you've returned the item to the bagging area and have no room to put your next item IN the bagging area, you might as well just give up and go home. You scan the item and then see that you don't have room for it. What to do? If you set it aside, the machine yells, "Item not bagged! Place item in bagging area, or press 'skip bagging' to proceed!"

Don't you fall for it. When you press "skip bagging" it yells "please wait for assistance, re-starting the whole process with the multiple screens and the secret code.

If you don't press "skip bagging", but you hesitate a second too long, you're no longer allowed to bag the item. Instead, the machine yells, "Unexpected item in bagging area! Please wait for assistance!" Then...well, you know the drill by now, right?

And this is small potatoes (no pun intended, I swear) compared to buying produce. When you place an item or bag of produce on the scale, you're given two options--key in the item's code, or choose it from a seemingly handy photographic menu. Usually, there are no stickers on the individual produce items indicating their item codes, so unless you had the forethought to write them down while in the produce section, you're stuck with the menu. On the surface, that seems like a good thing. I mean, how wrong can you go with pictures? Especially when the pictures are also labelled. The only problem is, the prices associated with these items by photograph rarely bear any relationship to the prices indicated on the shelves.

This evening, for instance, I chose, "Whole watermelon". That's what I bought, after all. The picture looked like my watermelon. The sign where I'd picked up the watermelon said, "Whole watermelons, $3.99". It all seemed very straightforward.

I chose "Whole watermelon" with the photograph of a watermelon much like mine (it might even have BEEN my watermelon) above it and the machine cheerfully announced, "Whole watermelon, $8.99."

Sigh. Wait for assistance. Screens. Secret code. Sometimes I don't bother, which might be the point--so far I've never found the produce prices to be LOWER than those indicated on the shelves.