checking out is hard to do

The promise is simple: faster, easier. The delivery mechanism is impressive: touch-screen, laser, plenty of glass and plastic, receipt pump, change machine. The experience is painful.

Self-checkout represents... this is where I should start using Luddite phrases like "false promise" or "lure of" or "sweet beckoning of saccharine charm."

Self-checkout, though, is really all about America. High technology reduces the need for extra employees and empowers the consumer. Independently, now, bag those onions, that coleslaw, those ramen noodles; you can do it yourself.

Except you can't.

Oh, you can, and you're thinking that as you clutch your 99-cent soda and 99-cent potato chips to your breast. It's the drudge in front who can't. He flips through produce, trying to remember if it's arugula (ARU) or romaine (ROM); the computer scratches its processor and helps with "artichokes" and "Roma tomatoes." She has fifty items in her cart--her cart!--and there's no limit to how long it will take.

After all, she is faster than a trained checker. He more nimble than a sprightly courtesy clerk. Feeding cash to a machine so much faster than handing it over.

The Albertson's near my home replaced half of the checkout lanes with machines, and now the lines move twice as slowly. The false promise of ease-of-use, the lure of a short lane, the sweet beckoning of saccharine charm....