I rarely shop at the major grocery stores, because they all have ‘loyalty cards’. The posted prices aren’t really the prices, unless you’ve signed up for a loyalty card, and the store’s personally-targetted spam and junk mail. Which I haven’t, and never will.

Yesterday, though, my tummy wanted corn chips, and my bus stop was in front of a QFC (part of the Kroger conglomerate), so I walked inside, and immediately remembered why I don’t shop there.

The posted price for a 9-ounce sack of potato chips was 4 for $10 — $2.50 each. In a saner era just a few years ago, the same sack cost $1.49 each, so that price isn’t awful.

Ah, but that’s the price for loyalty cardholders. For someone disloyal like me, the price was $5.69, for a single bag of chips.

Absolute criminals… But I wanted the chips, so I grabbed four bags, and thought I’d tell the cashier “I’d like to sign up for a loyalty card please!”

That’s what I usually do at Kroger or Albertson’s or anyplace that demands loyalty. The cashier gives me a blank membership form, and the membership price, and on my way out of the store I toss the membership form in the trash.

So with four bags of chips in my arms, I walked toward the cash registers, hoping for a 9-items-or-less line. No ‘express’ lane was open, and about 30 people, all with mountains of groceries, were waiting for three cashiers open for business. Ten minutes wait, minimum, and I’d miss my bus.

Already I was annoyed, but now I was more annoyed. I was annoyeder.

The self-serve machines were open and moving fast, but how do you tell the machine “I’d like to sign up for a loyalty card please!”? Probably there’s a button to push, but pushing the button would notify a human, who’d need to be paged. It would take too much time, and I’d miss my bus.

So I opened an ice cream freezer, and dropped three bags of chips into it. Decided I’d be buying only one bag of chips, for the rip-off price of $5.69, but at least I’d be out of that crappy store almost immediately.

I walked to an empty machine, showed it the corn chips’ barcode, and it beeped. $5.69. Absolute criminals.

I grumpily pushed a button that said, “Pay.”

The machine asked for my membership number or phone number, but screw that. I pushed the “Pay” button a second time, harder.

The machine offered a choice of paying with cash or with plastic. I selected plastic, inserted my card, and input my PIN. The screen said, “verifying card,” and then, “OK.”

Then it asked again for my membership number or phone number. Being my normal charming self, I said, “Screw that,” again, this time out loud, but softly.

Refusing to push any further buttons, I unzipped my backpack, dropped the corn chips inside, and took a step toward the door.

An employee barked “Sir!” at me. I ignored him and took another step or two toward the exit, and he grabbed my arm. Gently, but still, grabbed.

I’d been cranky since walking into the store, but when the guy grabbed my arm, my crankiness blew like Mount St Helens.

“What the fuck?” I said, far too loudly.

To his credit, the guy remained calmer than me. “You haven’t completed your purchase,” he said. “The screen is asking for your membership.”

“I’m not a member,” I said.

“Then you need to press this,” he said, pressing this, “and this and that,” he said, pressing this and that. That’s not a direct quote, ‘cuz what he said and did was a little more complicated, and I’m writing this an hour later.

The lesson to be learned, though, is that inserting your card and keying your PIN and seeing “OK” afterwards doesn’t mean you’ve made a purchase. Gotta answer three more questions, and then you’ve made the purchase.

And indeed, after he’d pressed the third button a receipt printed out, and he handed it to me.

“If you’d walked away,” he said, “your transaction would still be open, and someone else could ring up their groceries on your card.”

“Uh, thanks,” is all I said, because he’s not Mr Kroger. Heck, maybe he saved me a hundred bucks by grabbing my arm. But what I wanted to say was “Fuckall, could you guys make the software a little more convoluted and confusing?”

Card + PIN + OK should be a purchase. Or am I only a ridiculous old man in the grocery store?

On my way out, the security guard eyed me like I’m all ten of the FBI’s Most Wanted. If I’d been black I’d have been in handcuffs, I’m sure.

I waved my receipt about two inches from his nose, then muttered to myself like a ridiculous old man, all the way to the bus stop.

11/13/2024

itsdougholland.com
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