Self Checkoutaphobia

I've just added another psychosis to my ever growing list of mental issues. I've recently discovered I have "Self Checkoutaphobia". Ever since self checkout lanes have appeared in stores, I have found myself going out of my way to avoid them. Even if I have one item and every lane with a checker has a line of customers with full baskets, the risk of looking ridiculous is far less than the fear of the self checkout.

A self scanning checkout is an automated process that enables shoppers to scan, bag and pay for their purchases without human assistance... that is until the whole system malfunctions, and an actual person has to come over to assist in the check out. All which could have been avoided if an actual wage earning, problem solving, thinking and speaking being would have had the job in the first place. 

I have watched other people check themselves out and they seemed to come out relatively unscathed. I even tried it once myself with the help of a friend who was doing a self checkoutaphobia intervention on me. With her step by step guidance and enthusiastic cheerleading, I did manage to get my two items checked out with very little hyperventilating and only a small amount of foul language.

My first self checkout experience did nothing to help ease my tension. As I approached the checkout lane, I started to feel something along the lines of stage fright. This is also known as the fear of looking stupid.

To start with, I have a problem with authority, especially when the person telling my what to do is not a person at all. The moment I walked up to checkout and faced the touch screen, my hands began to tremble and sweat rings started to form under my arms.

I touched the screen to begin and a loud robotic voice said, "WELCOME, PLEASE SCAN YOUR FIRST ITEM". I took the item I wanted to purchase, and passed the bar code over the scanning area and dropped it into the bag. The next thing I heard was, "PLACE ITEM IN BAG". What the heck? The darn thing is already in the bag!

I took the item out and placed it back in the bag again. As I attempted to continue the checking out process, the robotic voice said, "PLACE ITEM IN BAG!" You have got to be kidding me! Maybe if I sat on the bagging station, the bag scale could detect that... it didn't seem to be weighing anything else.

I was getting highly agitated, and the man in line behind me wasn't helping matters with his foot tapping and loud sighing. I had visions of having to call an actual human supervisor over to help but, the fear of hearing over the intercom, "IDIOT ON SELF CHECKOUT NUMBER TWO", made me continue onward.

The audio voice seemed to be getting ruder and louder with each instructional step. It sounded as though the scanning machine was getting very impatient with me. I felt as though the sarcastic sounding audio was drawing unnecessary attention in my direction and I needed to get this experience over with as quickly as possible. 

I restrained myself from jumping up on the conveyor belt and screaming at this piece of technology, "Work with me here!!" So once more, I grabbed the item out of the bag and this time, forcibly pushed it down into the bag. The robotic voice said, "PLEASE SCAN NEXT ITEM".... Well, thank you for your cooperation!

I guess the checkout machine had it's laugh for the day and scanned my next item without much of a fight. I was ready to finalize my purchase and select a payment method. I stood staring at the touchscreen reading the different accepted payments... Cash, Check, Debit, Credit, Gift Card, Kidney, First Born...

I was never so glad to purchase something and get out of a store. As I was getting ready to leave, my sweaty armpits made me realize, I really needed to go back and buy some deodorant. It didn't take but a nanosecond, to change my mind and decide it would just be easier to stand downwind the rest of the day.