Self check out

The supermarkets in the US have this Self checkout option, to avoid making their customers wait in the forever serpentine queues. All items, except discrete vegetable and fruits have a bar code on them and you would scan the bar code.

The experience last week at the 'Always Low prices' store was not all that desirable. We keyed in the bar code number more number of times, than actually scanning the barcode. The machine/bar-code reader isn't sensitive at all, and even a Walmart employee who came to help, couldn't do it himself. It was worse, if one got multiple quantities of the same thing, since it didn't scan the second or the third piece of the same item. I wonder how cashiers do it all the time. Hats off to their efficiency.

At the Food and drug store, it is way better off, though I've faced the same problem, but not to this magnitude.

Cart thieves

A Graduate student in US, who does not have access to a car to go to the nearby grocery store invariably struggles in carrying the couple of gallon-cans of milk, cola cans, juice cartons, watermelons, along with other stuff, back home. Most stores in Tempe with the exception of one, have magnetic sensors on their carts and do not allow you to take the cart outside the store's parking lot. So the one that allowed earned the blessings of the students, no matter how strong the FRAGRANCE in the store was. Until recently, we used to pick up things from a market that was open beyond midnight, the best time for us poor souls, and walk all the way back carrying them, or take a bus back home if it wasn't too late.

A year and half back, me and 'Dream' bought half the (store which is on a the Safest path) and not being able to carry the stuff, tried to lift the cart across the wall and miserable failed. This was a disastrous experiments and I vowed I would never try it again.

But, 'Laziness overcomes any vow'. Once me, ‘Dedicated’, ‘Browny, Yellow and Lord’ and ‘Devotional song’, were there and as usual swiped our credit cards away to glory (in the store on the safest path again). I tried an age-old tested experiment on the cart then, just for fun. I lifted the cart’s front wheels and just pushed the cart which stood on its rear wheels alone. The trick worked, the cartwheels were not locked by the magnetic sensor. I earned the praises of the people named above. It was an easier trip back home.

Not so long back the trio, without the lord went to shopping, but we made sure our vow of being frugal was followed, since our good employers hadn’t turned in our information to the HR and we didn’t receive a pay. ‘God bless the employers.’ Each of us took a cart to try the trick, and a shocking thing happened. The trick didn’t work. The cart wheels were stuck. But ‘song’ saw a unique thing. It was just the front wheels that were locked, that too only from in front. So she gave us the ‘Nobel Laureate’ idea of pulling the cart backwards. Even though it meant complicated handling, it did wonders to the cart, it did save us that day.

The accomplices in Cart 'Thallufying'

But the only hassle is that the front wheel tries to rotate and it can pose a serious problem to you pushing. However the ‘dedicated’ is now a master in pushing it with dedication. I would want to try it with the ‘Always Low prices’ store, if at all I don’t get a ride then.

PS: I didn't name the people that were involved in this mission, it is left your imagination to find them out. Also, we heard a police car approaching once, I did scare them we might land up in trouble paying $2500 for 'thallufying' the cart.