Self-Checkout

You know those self-checkout stands at the supermarket, where you scan and bag your own items? I used to think that they were all about convenience, but now I’ve decided that they’re more about how insecure and self-conscious we are.

I realized that this morning when I didn’t put on deodorant.

Stick with me on this.

I didn’t have any this morning but didn’t realize it until after I’d showered. So I got dressed and headed to the closest Safeway. I snagged deodorant and walked towards the self-checkout and then pondered why I went there instead of a regular check stand.

I went there because I was fearful that somehow, the checker would see my lone purchase and intuit that I had foolishly forgotten deodorant that day and now I smelled obscenely like a pig farmer or some other foul-smelling individual.

Of course, I KNEW that the checker probably wouldn’t jump to that conclusion, and even if they did, so what? What do I care what a checker thinks about me (especially when what they think would have been TRUE)? Yet there I went, towards the self-scan machine in order to avoid a Safeway employee judging me.

Maybe those self-scan machines are more about hiding the pseudo-embarrassing things we buy and preventing a stranger from getting a look into the intricacies of our private lives. So what if the checker knows you like nacho cheese a little too much, or that you’re buying donuts paired with diet Coke, or that you have problems with foot odor…does it really matter? I think we need to learn how to be okay with who and what we are. After all, you have two options in regards to those embarrassing items: you can quit buying the cheese in a can if it embarrasses you so much or you can embrace the reality of who you are and confess your love of terrible food and admit to having smelly armpits.