If I have learned nothing else in my 51 years of life but this, I will have at least learned one of life’s most important lessons:
Never, ever, go through a U-Scan checkout lane at Kroger with Barb again.
Barb is my younger sister—she is 44. She is one of my BFFs—as she reminds me time and time again.
Today, we decided to have a girls day out, so we, without consulting each other, dressed in jeans, matching sweatshirts (although mine was Ohio State Buckeyes and hers was UC Bearcats, they were both grey with red, white, and black lettering), and Crocs. It was weird. We actually looked like one of those strange couples that dress in matching sweat suits and live in retirement homes.
First, we went to Family Dollar and puttered around, picked up some bargain items, and still managed to spend almost $70. Go figure.
Then to Kroger to pick up groceries for us and the parentals. I chose to go through the U-Scan because I was dividing the cost of what was bought between two separate checking accounts—one my mom’s, one mine.
To hasten the process, I told Barb she had to be the bagger. She positioned herself.
I scanned my Kroger card, scanned a box of hair color, handed it to Barb. Started to scan another box of hair color. The freaky scanner woman’s voice said: Please place the item in the bag. I turn to Barb and there she is reading the back of the hair color.
“Barb, put the hair color in the bag!”
“I’m reading it.”
“I can’t scan anything else until you put the hair color in the bag!”
“Fine.”
I scan the next box of hair color (there was a sale) and hand it to Barb. I proceed to scan the hairspray, have one in one hand ready to scan and another in the other hand in order to be ready to scan. Barb takes the one I’m about to scan and puts it in the bag.
Freaky scanner woman’s voice: Please remove the last item from your bag and rescan it.
“BARB!”
“What?”
I hadn’t scanned it yet.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?”
So the kind, scanner observer fixer person reset our order and I begin again.
I can’t continue. Barb has taken the box of hair color out of the bag and is reading it again.
“Barb, put it back in the bag—I can’t scan.”
“It was already in the bag.
“Drop it now!”
Finally, I get to the end of my order and press Pay, and have a coupon. The freaky scanner woman’s voice says: The attendant has been notified to assist you. There is a picture of a friendly woman smiling at us on the screen. The kind, scanner observer fixer person comes up behind us. Barb turns to look at him, looks at the screen, and says to the young man, “That’s not you.”
I move on to scan Mom’s groceries, which includes about 30 cans of fruit in its own juice (10 for $10!) and I decide I am not going through all this again with Barb reading the back of every can or packing them alphabetically or esthetically!
But lo, and yippee, there is actually a button you can hit that allows you to skip bagging. So I scan the cans of fruit and just keep piling them on the conveyor and hope that Barb will keep up. Worked like a dream.
Except that Barb was putting the bags of groceries that were already packed onto the U-scan “staging area” next to ours—and there was a customer waiting to use it.
“Would you like me to move those?” she sweetly asked them.
It must have been Barb’s smile—or the look of desperation on my face and the 30 cans of apricots and peaches rolling on the floor—the kind folks told her she could leave our bags on their staging area.
I swear, as we collected our bags and walked away, the young man— that kind, scanner observer fixer person—was at customer service handing in his resignation.
But today, Apple released this video on its new iPad, and I have computer-envy. It is lovely . . .
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