FRIDAY AT THE GROCERY STORE

So my son and I went to the neighborhood grocery store to get some stuff for dinner tonight. When it came time for checkout, my son suggested we used the self-checkout lane. You know...the ones where you scan your own crap.

Everything went relatively smoothly, but I ran into some difficulty when I was trying to scan the fish. The bar code on the label on one of the bags of fish wasn’t complete. So, after 18 dozen swipes across the laser-reader, I instructed the boy to take the fish to the cashier so she could manually put it into the system. She did, and I thought we were outta there.

Then came the shrimp. I had two packages of shrimp ($2.99-a-pound shrimp at that) to scan. It took about six swipes to get the first bag scanned in, and maybe a few more to get the second bag scanned...Finally. I was done just in the nick of time. I was getting, oh, just a little frustrated.

The payment part of the operation was here (whew). I slid the card through the appropriate mechanical orifice, selected “credit card,” and waited for my receipt....And waited. “What the fuck,” I muttered under my breath. Before another epithet could exit my pie hole my son said, “Dad, the lady is calling us over there.” I looked over her way and she made a you paid with a credit card, and need to come and sign the receipt over here dumbass gestures. Shit. We walked over to the podium and, before I could say anything to try to deflect the cashier’s attention from my apparent technological ineptitude, she said, “Is this your first time using one of those things sir?” My reply was a simple, “You’d think so.”

I signed the receipt and we walked out into the 99-degree heat toward the car.

The experience itself didn’t particularly bother me, because I really am technically capable. But that pimply little spike-haired girl, who couldn’t be a day over 22 years old, succeeded in making me feel like I was a 90-year-old incapable geezer!

But alas, I’ve recovered. Although I’ll be forty-three-years-old in a few weeks, I still feel like I did 25 years ago...Inside, that is.

Cj