Me Check? No, YOU check!

I generally avoid the self-check aisles at the grocery store. I was feeling cocky tonight because I finally remembered to bring one of the 10 re-usable bags scattered in my trunk and on my back seat. Why not conquer the intimidating U-Check line, too?

Things didn't go well from the beginning. The mechanized voice was sure I was trying to steal something when I put my re-usable bag in the bag dispenser. "Please scan the item before you put it in the bag," it said. "It is a bag!" I told it. The people behind me averted their eyes. "Please scan the item BEFORE you put it in the bag!" demanded the voice. I was trying to scan my little container of Hagen Daz ice cream by then, but it would have none of it. It kept ordering me to scan my first item. The clerk who is supposed to be keeping an eye on the U-Check circus was impatiently listening to a man explain why he didn't do it that way when he was sure the machine wanted it the other way the last time he was in.

I waited as patiently as I could (which, people who know me will tell you, means I was practically jumping up and down.) When she turned to me, I said, "It's telling me to scan my item, but it's my re-usable bag from home..." She nodded, nearly as impatient as I. "That's because it's a scale," she explained. "Oh-kaay," I said, "so what do I do about my bag from home?" "There, I fixed it, she said."

The voice calmed down while I scanned my small items, but when I tried to put the bag in my cart and drag a 1-gallon bottle of water up to the scanner, it got downright cranky. "Put the item in the bag!" "Leave the item in the bag!" It tried several commands, the way you do with a puppy to see which it responds to. "The bag is full!" I told it. The people behind me were ready to jump in and take over just to get me out of their way. I frantically slid my ATM card down the slot. "Please wait for cashier," it said. The cashier was getting ready to use one of those handy plastic bags to suffocate the man who was still trying to tell his interminable story.

"Excuse me," I said, "it won't let me pay." I have never seen anyone roll their eyes so completely back in their sockets without an exorcist standing by. She stomped over to my terminal and jabbed the big red "Pay now" button that I had missed, in my frazzled state. Now I was the one averting my eyes."Oh. Sorry." I said.

As I started to roll my cart away, the automated voice said, "Thank you for shopping with us; please come again!" Muttering like the lunatic everyone already assumed I was, I snarled, "Nope, not me. Not EVER again!"

I think I need to update my shopping skills one step at a time. I'll work on remembeering to bring in parts of my re-usable bag collection each time I shop. But I'm going to stand in line and read trashy magazines while waiting for the real live cashier--who actually knows how to operate the check-out machine. U-Check can wait. Maybe forever.