When I was little, I was always fascinated by the checkout scanner. I secretly hoped to be a checkout lady and get to run the groceries over the little laser. So, lucky me, I get my wish. I waited in line tonight to get to use the U-Scan at Kroger. The chirp of the mechanical ladie’s voice multiplied times 4 as I impatiently stood awaiting my turn. Finally, I heard her chime, “Thanks for shopping at Kroger” at one of the stations and dug around in my purse for my Kroger plus card. Yes, I did say dig. My wallet is currently empty and the contents are a random act of papers in the bottom of my black faux-leather purse, which happens to be divided into three compartments, adding to the confusing mess. I scanned in the card and proceeded to purchase my items. The act of scanning is quite annoying to me now. It is no longer fun when it asks me to “Please remove the item from the bag” or “Please wait for cashier assistance”. I find that Kroger is the easiest of these scanners to deal with (Wal-mart being the most annoying – every time I go the “CSM” has to punch in some random code, cause the barcode won’t scan). Tonight, the Kroger shopping trip ended ok, thanks to the fact that I didn’t make a huge purchase, but those times when you go and there is simply not enough space to put all your items into the plastic bags is just downright annoying. I don’t think this modern supposed “convenience” is what it is cracked up to be. It also doesn’t give me a chance to catch up on my Star! and National Enquirer tabloid gossip (and did I mention Weekly World News – used to love the Elvis Still Alive headlines). My dream to be a check out girl isn’t as cool as I had once thought. Next time I’ll leave it to the professionals.