I punched the air when self-service terminals came to my supermarket. Yippee – my 10 items or less didn’t have to line up, livestock-style, behind other shoppers anymore. Not getting stuck behind a person who takes seven-and-a-half minutes to locate their credit card, while they’ve lazily stood there in line doing nothing for the last nine minutes would do wonders for my stress levels. Would
I miss the “Are you having a nice day?” interrogation at the check-out? No, but I might miss the opportunity to reply with, “Yes, I’m having an amazing day comparing the price- per-sheet of bog paper and working out the best deal on bin liners.”
I was a sister and from now on I’d be doing it for myself. As a child, my horizons didn’t stretch far beyond my local supermarket. Sitting high in the front of the trolley, I watched in awe as the pinafore-wearing checkout chicks moved their nimble fingers over the cash register keys: individually plugging in the price of each item without looking.
Their names, Noelene, Debbie and Jan, seemed sophisticated to my four-year-old self, as did the way they counted back the change, so it was only natural that I wanted to grow up to be just like them. Or Abigail from Number 96 – but when I told my Grandma that, she dropped her knitting, got off the settee, muttered something about brazen hussy and pendulous breasts, then sobbed for hours. So my career path was set – I had a bright future ahead of me in the aisles …
Forty two years later, here I was, finally. The shopping in the trolley, the barcode scanner in my command. The power was intoxicating. I got off to a strong start, then an inconvenient packet-fold in the pasta tripped me up. There was a slight hesitation with the bag of pears – which ones were they? Williams, Bosc or Corella? Trouble. Apparently, I hadn’t placed my shopping in the “bagging” area and my red light began flashing, alerting the self-service supervisor. He was busy tending to a bloke with a hot chicken use-by-date crisis, so I was considerably stalled. I don’t wish to bag the other shopper, but please, sir, these things should be checked when one is at the hot chicken bar, not when one is exiting the store.
Was I using my own bag? The computer wanted to know. I repeatedly pressed yes, but the machine didn’t believe me. A Mexican stand-off ensued, woman vs machine – and I was promptly shut down. This was annoying. As was packing my own bags. What a disaster: my toilet cleaner ended up in with my chicken fillets (the ones you eat, not wear) and my nuts were crushed when I placed them underneath four litres of milk.
Perhaps I wasn’t cut out for this self-serve life after all? I liked shopping more when somebody did it for me. I was able to stand at the check-out, eating a sneakily opened packet of Cheds while mindlessly flicking through a magazine and returning it to the rack (yes, we all do it).
I know it’s wrong, but I missed the deep satisfaction of passing judgement on other people’s choices. As I place my yogurt-topped muesli bars and five-seed bread on the conveyor belt behind ice-cream, Caramel Crowns and packets of chips, for a fleeting moment I feel like Michelle Bridges. Does the woman in front really need all of that chocolate? Why so many “family-sized” packets when she just told the check-out operator she lives alone with her cats? Hmm. The man behind me, well, he needs to sharpen up his act – Heat ‘n’ Serve meals do not a good diet make. Has he not looked at his skin?
It’s great to be smug until you get behind the wrong trolley, one filled with Belgian chocolate, rosemary and salt-encrusted grissini, Stilton cheese, Impulse and a 12-pack of condoms. Groceries that belong to a single girl and speak of a life of carefree abandon, casual sex and constant sleep-ins.
Because when that happened to me, my trolley contents – 12 kilos of Cold Power, a kilo box of Cornflakes, Sensodyne toothpaste, alphabet noodles, Sapoderm soap and Odour Eaters – really did say much, much, much more about my life than hers. Sigh. Pass me the Cheds.
A version of this article originally appeared in the May 2015 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
