It's gotten to the point where the mere thought of going to the supermarket makes me break out in hives. I've written before about the cow-like behavior of the fine denizens of Bako when confronted with a checkout counter. Suffice it to say it's like watching the first 20 minutes of "2001: A Space Odyssey", where you watch the apes learn to use bones as tools and then one of them up and clocks another in the head with one. Every time I'm in the line I think about doing the same thing to the person in front of me with their brick of Velveeta.
There's a constant refrain that crosses my mind, day in and day out, like a mantra...
"Nobody Can Be This Stupid".
And yet, they are.
Today the woman in front of me, mid 30's, was furiously trying to key in her Club code, to no avail. The helpful checker said he'd input it for her if she'd just give him the number. And she just went B L A N K. Just stared at the guy, dumbfounded.
Your Club code is your phone number. What the hell had she been trying to type in? Was she just mesmerized by the pretty numbers?
I found myself hoping she was a scam artist, that she didn't have a Club code and was just trying to wrangle a pass by acting helpless. But no, she dug in her purse and found some form of ID and dutifully recited her phone number to him like a first grader.
At least that roadblock was relatively quick. I wasn't so lucky last week when I ended up behind Grandpa Walton. He seemed kindly enough and was jovial, bantering with the checker and bag girl.
Until they scanned the bread.
His favorite bread, the only kind he ever bought, we soon learned.
The price had gone up.
Four cents.
Welcome to "Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Discount Shopper".
He flew into a RAGE, cussing, demanding to see the manager, screaming to the high heavens about "highway robbery" and "screwing the people". And then he harrumphed off into the bread section to find a cheaper selection.
For ten minutes.
And I couldn't do a thing about it. The checker wouldn't clear his order so the rest of us could get on with our lives. And I was pinned in from behind by an immense woman and her two corpulant offspring, her cart piled high with Funyons and Diet Mountain Dew.
Eventually the old man came back.
With the same bread.
"Just scan it" he said, "but you're all crooks!"
It was his favorite bread.
At any rate, the title to the post doesn't just refer to the Strauss music from "2001". I discovered it also refers to a novel by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Much of the work deals with ideas such as the "eternal recurrence of the same".
Just like the checkout lines of Bakersfield.
