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By DONNA SPRAGUE
Wed Jan 23, 2008, 11:12 AM EST
I was out of broccoli. The one thing I cannot do without! By the way, people who do not like broccoli are NOT to be trusted.
So, in a moment of total madness and panic, I drove over the stream and through the woods to the new Stop & Shop. It's convenient for quick fill-in shopping when our Market Basket food runs out.
A bag of apples and a few stalks of broccoli... how long could that take to buy?
I grabbed a bag of small macs for Gorilla, and the broccoli for both of us, and ran to the checkout with the lit sign over it which proclaimed: “10 Items or Less.”
But it turned out to be one of those self check out things which I avoid like the plague on principle. Big companies will do everything to save money and take jobs away from humans and I don't like to participate in that. The same thing is happening in the health field where big companies are phasing out the nurses by having the aides do treatments and give meds.
As Dr. Bragg used to tell me, “There is an epidemic of greed!”
Repulsed by the self checkout, I lurched over to survey the scene, and saw that there were only two registers open, both with lines of people with full carriages.
I didn't have time to wait. I had to get back home, cook, eat, shower and get to work! Principles down the drain, I begrudgingly let a very nice young woman show me how to perform the self checking out system.
There's a computer upon which a screen pops up to tell you the code of veggies which don't have the bar codes on them. The broccoli required the punching in of numbers, which the woman knew by heart, which sped things up considerably, since I didn't have to wallow through all the screens. I couldn't imagine the frustration of me, who is still pretty much computer illiterate, finding my own way through the food maze!
Oh the epithets I would shout! Oh the embarrassment of being hauled off in cuffs for inciting a riot and causing a life time of fear of old crazy ladies in any children present during my decomposing!
Pretty soon, I mused, on my way back through few remaining woods back to the Flats, there would be all robots working at the big chain stores.
Robots stocking the shelves, and self service customer service and registers. “Press One if you want a refund.” “Press Two if you want a Prozac to get you through this process...”
I imagined robots at the doctors offices replacing the receptionists and the nurses who weigh you... “Please step onto the scale and stand still.”
“Please lie back on the table and put the stethoscope on your chest.”
“Please slide your CapitaCare card and receive your prescription.”
I'm all for progress, but when there are no stores employing workers, and all other jobs being outsourced to other countries, who will have money to buy things in the stores from the robots? The tourists!
Market Basket always has all 20 or so registers humming. Even during the times of frantic shopping before storms or Pats or Red Sox games, we have never had to wait long to get in and out.
Just because a store is local and relatively easy to get to does not always translate to “convenient” especially when one must wait for not enough employees or nutty lottery ticket buyers who can't decide which losing ticket they want to buy!
At least society the way it currently is now gives me lots of opportunities to practice my calming breathing, meditation of living in the Now, chanting “namyo ho rengy kyo,” and forgiveness for NO ONE seems to know what they do these days!
Email Sprague at donna@povertyflats.com.
