The Self-Checkout Has Chosen Violence

I went to the grocery store for three things. Bread, bananas, and toothpaste. Three things. This should have taken approximately seven minutes, assuming I walked at a reasonable pace and successfully avoided making eye contact with anyone I knew.

Forty-five minutes later, I was standing at the self-checkout with seventeen items. I don’t know what happened. Apparently, somewhere between the bananas and the toothpaste, I decided I was a woman who needed fancy crackers, two kinds of cheese, a houseplant, and a family-sized bag of chocolate despite not having a family-sized plan for sharing it.

Fine. Whatever. I began scanning my purchases. Bread. Beep. Cheese. Beep. Chocolate. Beep. Everything was going beautifully until I scanned the bananas.

“PLACE ITEM IN BAGGING AREA.”

I placed the bananas in the bagging area.

“UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA.”

Excuse me? You literally just invited them.

I removed the bananas.

“PLEASE RETURN ITEM TO BAGGING AREA.”

At this point, the machine and I had entered a toxic relationship. I put the bananas back.

“UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA.”

I stared at the machine. The machine stared back. Neither of us was willing to apologize.

An employee eventually wandered over and asked if I was having trouble.

“No. We’re just getting to know each other.”

She tapped the screen exactly once, and the machine immediately behaved. Of course it did. Apparently, I had chosen a self-checkout that respected authority but enjoyed emotionally abusing civilians.

I continued scanning, and everything went remarkably well for almost thirty seconds. Then came the houseplant.

“ITEM NOT RECOGNIZED.”

“It is a plant.”

“ITEM NOT RECOGNIZED.”

“A PLANT.”

Nothing.

I looked at the employee. She looked at me. I slowly held up the plant.

“I appear to have stolen vegetation.”

Back she came. Another tap on the screen, and suddenly the machine understood the concept of horticulture. I thanked the employee. The machine did not.

Finally, I reached the payment screen. Victory was within reach. I tapped my card.

“PAYMENT DECLINED.”

My soul left my body.

There was money in the account. I knew there was money in the account. I tried again.

“PAYMENT DECLINED.”

Fantastic. Now everyone within twelve feet probably thought I was attempting to finance seventeen groceries and an illegally obtained fern.

Then I looked at the card in my hand. Wrong card, naturally. I pulled out the correct card, tapped it, and finally received the most beautiful words I had seen all day.

“PAYMENT APPROVED.”

Then, after everything it had put me through, the machine had the audacity to ask whether I would like a receipt.

Would I like a receipt?

Ma’am, after everything we’ve been through together, I want documentation. I want witnesses. I want a certificate of survival.

I pressed YES.

Nothing happened.

No receipt.

I waited.

Still nothing.

Then the screen cheerfully announced, “THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING WITH US!”

Oh, we’re done? You’re just going to emotionally destroy me and then act like this was a perfectly normal commercial transaction?

Fine.

I gathered my groceries, reclaimed my apparently legal houseplant, and headed toward the exit.

That’s when I heard the employee calling after me.

“Ma’am!”

I turned around.

She was holding something.

My toothpaste.

The one thing I’d actually gone there to buy.

I looked at the toothpaste. Then I looked down at my seventeen-item cart containing artisan crackers, two kinds of cheese, chocolate, bananas, and a houseplant I was now apparently responsible for keeping alive.

I sighed.

“Of course.”

Because apparently I hadn’t gone grocery shopping.

I’d gone on a side quest.

And somehow, I came home with a fern. 😂

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