The cupboard is in its proverbially bare state. (There are always a few dried spices and the remnants of a box of Wheat Chex from the last time someone made party mix, but you know what I mean.) I can think of no excuse to get me out of heading to the supermarket after work.

I hate the supermarket.

Specifically, I hate checking out at the supermarket. Specific to that, I hate checking out in one of those self-serve lanes. I loathe it. They are, I’m sure, the invention of a sadist; probably some guy who used to teach middle school gym until he finished his night school business classes and got a job at green grocer corporate. Seriously, I will travel out of my way to go to a supermarket where I know they still mostly employ live checkout people, just to avoid the scolding voice and inevitable humiliation of the self-serve checkout lane.

Finishing work for the day, I found myself next to a store I haven’t been inside in years. My favorite store was all the way across town, so I decided to risk it. I hurried in, grabbed a cart and headed for the produce section. And, of course, I got a cart that thought it was an indy race car: it only wanted to turn left. When I forced it to go straight it protested with the dreaded caster wheel chatter. Nobody looks at you when you have caster wheel chatter; they are thinking “poor bastard, glad it wasn’t me this time.” I am caught between the desire to race through the store to try to get out of there as soon as possible, and the knowledge that the faster I go, the louder my cart protests. Needless to say, if I forget something in my quick zig-zag aisle run, I’m not going back. Produce meats canned frozens dairy and I’m ready for checkout. And, oh god, there they are.

Six self-serve checkouts and two human checkouts. The human checkouts have huge lines. There is no express lane; that’s gone the way of the passenger pigeon. In front of me there is an empty self-serve lane. Do I trudge over to the back of the human line, or do I succumb to the thought that this time, somehow, I will manage to get through the self-serve lane unscathed? I succumb.

I have learned not to rush the self-serve lane’s pedantic school-marm voice. Like a good boy, I push all of the buttons I’m supposed to push, and scan my first item. And it works. Put it on the belt like I’m told. Scan the next one. Put it on the belt. Maybe this will be okay. The next thing, though, is a package of chicken breasts which have been marked down. Taking a deep breath, I pull aside the plastic bag like the checkout pro’s do, and try to scan the chicken. Nothing. Try it another direction. Nothing. Upside down, angled, reverse direction, slower, faster, and nope, it won’t scan, and now the school-marm keeps telling me “If you’ve scanned your last item, push the finished button.” I start to fear that she’s going to make me start over, or make me go stand in a corner of the store. I set the chicken aside and quickly scan my last easy-to-scan item, but now it’s only the chicken and the watermelons, and so I raise my hand in shame and call over the scanner manager.

Instead of six checkout people, they now have this one scanner manager, who spends his time fixing the screw-ups of us dim-witted scanning masses. He, naturally, unsuccessfully tries to scan the chicken himself (which gives me just a moment’s pleasure) before flashing his ID card at the machine and typing in a bunch of chicken-related codes, and then walks off silently, leaving me with the watermelons still to do. “Yep, this is sure a time saver for all of us,” I say to his back as he walks off, but he doesn’t turn around.

Now the watermelons, and what’s this? They have bar code stickers on them! There must be some genius working in the produce section. I scan the first melon – beep! – and the school marm says “item not found,” even though it seems to be right in my hands. “What are you talking about?” I want to reply. “The item was never lost.” But I will look like even more of a fool if I start talking to the checkout scanner, so instead I make my big mistake of the day, and I try to fix the problem. I try typing in the 4 digit code, “4032” (red seedless). Unfortunately, the screen turns an ominous yellow color, and – swear to god – the belt reverses and the chicken starts coming back toward me again! Rather in a panic, I raise my hand and flap it to get the scanner manager’s attention. I knew I’d regret my earlier smart-ass remark.

Out comes the ID card and tickety-tack go the fingers. The scanner seems to accept his direction, and I notice the price on the screen says “.99”. Though I’m not the most careful shopper, I know watermelons cost more than ninety nine cents, but the veneer of civility is thin in the best of us, and mine has been severely scratched, and I’m ready to get away with this secret victory until the school marm gives it away by drawling “ninety-nine cents,” which catches the scanner manager’s attention. “That can’t be right,” he says.

So he calls over a genuine expert, a check-out lady from one of the human lines. “Is this them watermelons that are on sale?” he asks her. She, in turn, flashes out her badge and scornfully types in some new numbers. (I don’t know how she conveyed it, but the scorn was clearly there.) The watermelons ring up at $3.49 apiece and she walks away silently, the pecking order revealed. “Them bambino melons are on sale, right?” he calls out after her. When you’re caught in the pecking order, proper grammar is the first thing to go.

Fortunately, the melons are my last item. Pacing myself once again, I tap the right places on the screen and swipe my bank card. I unwind the overcoiled electronic pen and start to sign my name on the screen, and then the idea hits me. I sign in small cursive, and then in the remaining space print as clearly as I can “THIS STORE SUCKS.”

And so, it is with a smile on my face that I grab my stuff and wobble my cart out to my car. You may have won the battle, self-serve checkout lane, but the war is still on, and there’s fight within me yet.