Why I Hate Shopping for Food

I hate shopping for food for a ton of reasons...the fact that anything healthy costs more than anything unhealthy, hunting for a parking space only to find an abandoned shopping cart in it, signs that say things like "10 Item's or Less" and set my teeth on edge...but one of the more recent developments in the universe, one that I thought I would really love, tends to make me the craziest: self-checkout.

First let me say: I love self-checkout. Love it. I love scanning my items, touch-screening in my method of payment, and then swiping my debit card. These are great things. (Even greater is Jewel-Osco's "pay by touch" system, where you pay by putting your finger on this little scanner, but that's a whole other post.) So I'm a big fan of the concept behind going into the store, grabbing the small handful of items you need, scanning 'em, paying for 'em, and getting on with your life without going through the traditional manned checkout/bagging lane. Except for one thing: People have no clue how to line up for self-checkout, and most stores are too shy to just go ahead and make up a rule.

The rule should be: Form one line for the self-checkout area, and then the next person in line goes to the next available scanner, no matter which one becomes free first. Right? Isn't that a nice, simple rule that should work? The self-checkouts are usually even set up to be conducive to this rule, because there is more than one self-checkout kiosk per row.

However, this rule does not work, because 1) Most stores won't put up signs explaining it, thus ensuring that everyone realizes what a wonderful rule it would be; and 2) In the absence of a written rule, people automatically try to get behind the person who appears to have the fewest items to scan, thinking that this scanner will be available next. False logic, since it is entirely possible that the person attempting to purchase that one 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke with Lime will have never used the scanner before, not realized that only Pepsi products are the ones on sale, and have nothing but wrinkled, disheveled dollar bills to put into the bill acceptor. (And that's only if the person succeeds in locating the bar code on the product, and it's not ripped or defaced enough to prevent a successful scan.)

So if everyone would just form a single-file line, things could conceivably move a lot faster...and then those little shopping trips for a single jar of fat-free beef gravy wouldn't turn into exercises in exasperation.