Remember when computers first came around and we all thought they would replace humans? Time is running out folks. Anyone browsing across this who digs this sort of thing please read more about my first experience with it by pushing (you guessed it) “read more”. I thought it was so cool to see four self serve aisles where you scan your own groceries and check out without those pesky clerks and baggers. So even though we wound up with 83 items in our cart I coerced norcaldoll into using one of the aisles. I mean, how hard could it be, right?

For starters, never do this with over three bags worth of groceries. The machine requires that you leave your bagged groceries on the weight sensitive plate until you have paid. It makes sense, but the area is so small that if you have, for example, 83 items you need to split them in half and check out twice as we did. This gets messy and causes norcaldoll to grow frustrated with norcalfella who is not good at bagging groceries.

The next pitfall is the fruit and vegetables. Weighing them and punching in the code seems easy enough, but actually the codes in many cases are wrong and for some unknown reason you need to specify if they are in bags, plastic or otherwise packaged. This can require assistance and defeats the purpose.

Ultimately, it is great for buying things that you are too embarrassed to hand to the clerk, or for that time when you want to run in and grab something without being hassled. Now that I’ve shared my self serve experience, hopefully others will chime in (i.e. push submit comment) about where across our great nation (or around our great planet) other such self serve outlets exist to buy groceries. I’m done for now. s

For starters, never do this with over three bags worth of groceries. The machine requires that you leave your bagged groceries on the weight sensitive plate until you have paid. It makes sense, but the area is so small that if you have, for example, 83 items you need to split them in half and check out twice as we did. This gets messy and causes norcaldoll to grow frustrated with norcalfella who is not good at bagging groceries.

The next pitfall is the fruit and vegetables. Weighing them and punching in the code seems easy enough, but actually the codes in many cases are wrong and for some unknown reason you need to specify if they are in bags, plastic or otherwise packaged. This can require assistance and defeats the purpose.

Ultimately, it is great for buying things that you are too embarrassed to hand to the clerk, or for that time when you want to run in and grab something without being hassled. Now that I’ve shared my self serve experience, hopefully others will chime in (i.e. push submit comment) about where across our great nation (or around our great planet) other such self serve outlets exist to buy groceries. I’m done for now.