Harpoon Run
I’m a big fan of privacy when handling personal business, and that includes not announcing my undertakings to all and sundry when making purchases! All the stores around here have taken to installing those self-checkout stands lately. If you can save a few dollars in minimum wage by getting the customer to ring themselves up – score another point for Corporate America! Every checkout machine I’ve used of late – Kroger, I’m looking at you – has a monotone narrator of every transaction:
“Please scan your shopper’s card.” Done.
“Place the item in the bag.” Also done.
“Place the item in the bag.” I DID!
“Place the item in the bag.” SONOFA--
“Press continue.” I punch the button like I’m Chuck Norris.
“Please remember to take your receipt.”
She is impervious to my irritation.
The other day I schlepped over to the CVS to buy some, ahem, “feminine items.” On these buying trips, I always make sure to buy a handful of other things so it doesn’t look like I’m in the middle of a crisis and having to make an emergency “harpoon” run. (My friend Thomas calls them that, and it makes me giggle every time, even though we’re both old enough to know better.) There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, but I’ll admit I still blush a little when I have to buy them.
Sure enough, there was one of those self-checkout kiosks. I glared at it as I stepped up, two enemies about to do battle.
“PLEASE SCAN YOUR SHOPPER’S CARD!” it boomed, and I jumped. This one sounded like David Attenborough on steroids. No privacy here.
I scanned my items, one by one.
“BEEP! $9.79. PLACE THE ITEM IN THE BAG.” Defensive, I sensed the guy in line behind me watching me ring up my purchases. Yes, sir, I just paid $10 for soap. Strands of greasy hair poked out from under his trucker hat and established his astonishing indifference to cleanliness.
“BEEP! $5.52. PLACE THE ITEM IN THE BAG.” This is why you don’t buy a bag of Cheezy Poofs at a drugstore.
On and on it went while I scanned, announcing my purchases to the store.
When I came to the harpoons, shockingly, something went awry.
“BEEP!” Nothing happened.
“BEEP!” Still nothing.
“BEEP!” An older man came running.
“Ma’am, let me help you. What do we have here?” he asked, holding up the tampons.
“What we have here, sir, is a failure to scan my harpoons at a volume that doesn’t tell the store all of my business,” I said, crankily.
