August 14, 2026 Some Days ...

 The grocery store was packed. The county fair and rain storm (It always rains at some point during fair week.) was on and there were people in every aisle. Although I didn't have much in my cart by the time I got to the cash registers the waiting lines were down the aisles three-carts-deep. I saw a self-checkout register, one of four, come open so I began scanning items myself rather than ending up for sure out in Malung Township someplace; I know how things can get out of hand,

   Maybe it was the unusual crush of people waiting for a register, combined with the difficulty I was having separating and opening new plastic bags in the bagging area that built my anxiety. It wasn't like I wasn't familiar with the self-checkout process. I've done it many times, but I am impatient with a machine that annoyingly repeats things, like "Place your item in the bagging area, " or "Replace the item removed from the bagging area."

   Granted, I'm an older guy of 75 now. I make honest mistakes from time to time; I'll own up to them. Admit when I'm wrong and all that. You won't get a hassle out of me unless I realize I've been unfair to you, as you've pointed out; and you downplay my effort to make amends. We are human beings and shit happens, but in this case of my duress the machine generated a HELP signal and as busy as the store was, in this case, it was a minute or two before an employee responded. I get that; that's not an issue. I've been in those situations myself as service person over the years; it's not pleasant, especially if it's beyond your control to change the situation.

   When I explained my difficulty with separating the bags from each other and opening them one at a time, this combined with the machine repeatedly claiming I had removed an item from the bagging area -- and so I had then moved it back out in frustration (which only added to the problem); she pointed out a little rectangular-shaped yellow sponge on the rack by the bags. Then, smiling appropriately, she said "You can use this sponge for that." (The sponge was an accessory I had no experience utilizing, nor was its use demonstrated, even as obvious it would've been for a younger individual -- or immediately, for a woman.) Then the attendant left on another errand, assured, at least in her mind, that she helped me.

   Sometimes I use unnecessary verbiage explaining an issue (even in my writing) if only not to express myself in toy factory-talk or that coarse language often said to be used by sailors upon wharves on extremely rare occasions. Knowing this tendency in myself, it was as if by magic the register again locked up and the overhead light began flashing; and a calm befell me. 

   I chose to just stand there, arms folded across my chest; staring forward across the store; watching people about their busyness taking items from the shelves and placing them in their baskets; visiting with others, smiling at cashiers, laughing at some joke or funny thing. I saw a former in-law standing in one line, his back to me. I had no inclination to gain his recognition where I stood with other people staring at me in turn, perhaps wondering what it was I was doing holding up the check-out line as they waited, but doing nothing about it.

   I wished I was somewhere else. I don't remember if an attendant restarted the register or it had reset itself, but in the interim I managed to bag what I had scanned, and then placed back into my grocery cart; scanning its remainder and placing them loosely onto the bagging area just to avoid further humiliation. Presuming I was the center of attention of the crowd --and imagining the attendant standing off to the side thinking they wanted nothing else to do with me, I just went on about my business; what could I do? It is what it is.

   I made sure I paid for what I had scanned, then saw the case of bottled water I had put on the lower rack of the cart that I had not scanned with the other grocery items. I could imagine someone following me out towards the parking lot before alerting me of that fact. (That was close.) Using the hand-scanner, I scanned the water and paid for it separately; my face probably blood-red by the time I left the store. I'll not self-check there again -- just pack some homemade fudge bars in my pockets to sustain myself along some township road, waiting in line, should a similar future situation arise.