My father used to design grocery stores for the likes of Kroger, Winn-Dixie, Bettendorf and Handy-Andy Supermarkets. Which meant that in high school in the early 70s, I always had a summer job “checking groceries.” I trained on what they called an “electrical decimal cash register.” No barcode scanners to translate binary codes. No lighted display to tell me how much change I should make. No temperamental self-checkouts.
Instead, it was my job to press down the appropriate
cash-register keys to enter in prices, count correct change and bag groceries if
“sackers” were outside retrieving hurled shopping carts. Since I didn’t use a barcode scanner, my customers hardly
spoke to me. Instead, they were fixated on my every keypunch. When I handed them their receipts, they
x-ray-visioned them all the way out to their cars.
So last weekend I had to smile while paying for my purchases
at a local Sarasota grocery store. I had accumulated a small but respectful
mountain of fruits and vegetables inside my squeaky-wheeled basket. I placed them
in order of hardest to softest on the conveyor belt to encourage proper
packing.
The young cashier went to work, sliding my canned and
bottled items over the scanner like they were greased potatoes. But when she
got to my nectarines, my pears, my Granny Smiths and two kiwis, she sighed and
apologized.
“I wish all these barcodes would work, “ she complained, squinting
at the labels and punching in the numbers with French-manicured nails.
Well, I couldn’t help myself. I told her that as a young
cashier back in the 70s, I had to memorize the code for each fruit and
vegetable, weigh each one on jiggly scales and punch in each code.
I said that back in those days, you had to know the
difference between a McIntosh and a Winesap. Green
bananas and firm plantains. A Dixie Giant and a hefty beefsteak.
The girl almost dropped my kiwis.
But at least she had the wherewithal to remind me to enter
my seven-digit zip code and push credit or debit. I swiped my credit card and went along my merry way.
