The other day I was at Wal-Mart doing groceries. I have to go to this specific Wal-Mart now because they're doing construction at this building near the other grocery store in my area, and now everyone uses the parking lot for that grocery store to do other things even if they're not a grocery store customer and you can never get a spot now unless you drive around for an hour and waste your whole life.
Anyway, that's not the point of the story or why I began talking to you about this. I was at Wal-Mart checking out, and for some reason I still find myself drawn to the cashiers. I'm not sure why I do this: it is the less intelligent choice on almost every level. It's slower and you have to stand there waiting for much longer than you would have to if you opted for the self-checkout. I suppose the main reason I still choose the cashier lane is not because I'm some kind of morally pure individual and want to save jobs or something or doing it in solidarity with my fellow worker or whatever. To be perfectly honest with you, I sometimes feel too lazy to ring items up by myself and deal with that additional layer. It feels like I'm doing extra work that I'm not being paid for. I know that I'm wasting time by waiting in a line I don't have to, but I have sometimes purposely done this because I simply don't feel like cosplaying as a cashier for myself that particular day. There are pros of self-checkout for sure, like if it's just one or two items. I don't mind that. But it's crazy to me when I see people with giant carts full of stuff who are still choosing to ring all that up themselves. What are they trying to save, 5 minutes of time? What are they gonna do with that extra 5 minutes. I suppose you could meditate with that time, but I doubt anyone obsessed with saving time would have the cognizance to do that later.
Anyway, recently I was in this line and it was about a 3-5 minute wait. So I just stood there. The people in front of me: a couple with a baby, and then the guy in front of the couple was a typical beer drinking hoser dude. The hoser turned back and engaged in goofy comical play with the baby, and some light conversation with the father in the couple. The guy wasn’t saying anything important or useful, just the usual bullshit stuff you say with a father and kid like, “Ohhh he looks tired! He could use a nap! Same here bud!” They both laughed and it was almost like the waiting in line didn't even matter to them after a certain point, you know? I'm not saying this exchange warmed my heart completely or something, because I'm against overpopulation and firmly believe people should not have children anymore. Past like 1981 I don't think anyone should be having kids anymore. It was all downhill after Jimmy Carter, I always like to say.
But still, there was something so pure, so wonderful about this moment. Here were these two men bonding over making this baby laugh, passing time in such a human way. They didn't know each other before that and most likely would not see each other after the financial exchange was over for everyone involved. Yet they laughed with the baby, and then even said goodbye to each other when it was time to part ways as if they were ending a formal meeting.
Now, the obvious observation here is that.....this doesn't happen in the self-checkout lane. It's obvious and not that smart of a thing to notice, but I'll write about it nonetheless. This sort of thing doesn't happen in the self-checkout lane, in fact it's just the opposite: if you take more than your allotted time to figure something out, if you make a mistake or take more than a SECOND longer than you're supposed to the employee hired to monitor the area will come up to you and ask you if you need help in a serious tone. It's not in a helpful, warm, kind way, it's in a sort of German or Orwellian way if that makes sense. She's tonally like, "What the fuck are you still doing here, you can't figure out how to type buttons, retard? Get the fuck out of my lane...." The funny thing about a self-checkout line versus a cashier is that when you take too long at self-checkout, you have no one to blame but yourself. You can sort of feel the glaring eyes behind you and people becoming more and more impatient and losing what was left of their humanity. But with a cashier if it takes too long you can just stand there and pretend you're a good person; it's not your incompetence with technology that's the problem, or the fact that you smoked a lot of weed in high school and you're slow now, but rather it's the cashier, or the world, or capitalism, the system at large, the Walton family, etc.
I don't want this to go on too long because this isn't remotely original or that insightful of an observation, but there was something so striking to me about that moment. The complete lack of humanity at self-checkout and how Stanley Kubricky and cold and sterile it feels there versus the "old school" way is so obvious. I mean, even if those guys and the baby weren't there to warm my cold little heart I would have probably stood there staring at titties and the hot women on the magazine covers in the stands near the cash register. Or even just glancing at some of the absurd over the top headlines at some of those publications I've never even heard of. I would’ve been invested in other humans instead of the dry, grey nothingness of self-checkout. But even those magazines are more interesting than the dull DIY checkout area devoid of any emotion or humanity at all. It’s funny that it’s even in the title of it: self-checkout. It’s suicidal in a way, it’s like we’re actively trying to get rid of what makes us human. Let’s kill it all with technology.
(Here's another small example of what I mean before I stop here: you can't even pay with change at the self-checkout. You would think in the 2020s they could get a machine to count up your change so you can get rid of it. Instead they just want you to tap your card and be a robot, you don't even have the choice of how you get to pay anymore).