The Resistance Waits in Line

Read in this form at the Tambourine Lounge, Sturgeon Bay, 8/8/19:

Root beer popsicles: I remember them well. I thought about them while in line that day.

I didn't have to be in line at the supermarket, on Milwaukee's East Side. I was offered, and perfectly knew about, an opportunity to whisk my way through, checking out by bar-coded machine.

I said no. Thing is, so did several others.

We stood in a single line while at least five other humanly-operated checkout counters went wanting. They were closed, on purpose. They were closed by stretching cords across shopping carts.

It was about three-thirty on a Wednesday afternoon. At least ten of us waited in the only actual checkout line available. The line stretched for at least twenty yards, well past those closed checkout counters, toward other kinds of displays meant for those who kept shopping.

But you see, those counters needed actual human beings to work them. They'd have to pay those people to do so.

It became quite obvious that the store didn't want that scenario. Automation 101 here. So an attendant--one assigned to assist, if need be, at the non-human checkout counters--began to go down our line and ask us, one by one, if it would be all right for us to checkout automatically, without human contact, or conversation, or anything else but a cold-blooded computer.

The fellow in front of me, fifth in line, had already sounded off. He had turned to me, looked askance, and said, "I'd say something, but I won't." Then proceeded to say what was on his mind and mine: This is a bad look for this store. This is silly. This is, well, inhuman.

And it also meant that eventually, he reminded me, the young lady who was singularly, actually tokenly, checking people out wouldn't be doing so before too long. And those unpeopled counters? No doubt they're due to be gone soon, too--yielding to automatic scanners with automatic voices doing automatic things.

This would be capitalism in its most cold-shouldered form someday, for someone, not anyone we knew or would ever know. We would not be people, but automatons performing tasks caught by sensors. We've stopped seeing the farmers who produced the produce long ago, unless we could stop by and look upon their wares at invented markets on Saturday mornings.

We didn't have that. We had a lady, doing her job, going down the now very extended row of awaiting, finished, now growing annoyed shoppers and asking whether, in fact, they would like to participate in the faster, non-human checkout process.

One by one, we said no. The fellow behind me had an excuse; he was waiting for a partner to return with more items. I just flat said no, thank you.

It felt liberating. Here, in the middle of a spring afternoon, was a wildcat protest against corporate, efficient, officious recidivism, against taking our money without any human contact in return. I could barely hold back a smile.

But then I thought, too, about growing up in a small town not far away, where, on a hot summer's afternoon, I could grab my bike and pedal about twenty minutes to Schmit's Grocery, on what was then a fairly busy corner, which meant that sometimes as many as four cars would be backed up at the four-way stop. If I had a nickel, I could buy myself a root beer popsicle.

There were plenty of popsicle flavors--I liked orange and cherry, too--but root beer was the one I desperately needed. I would sit on the front steps, separated by a brick column that defined the corner of the building, splitting the steps into two parts, and savor that sucker. Snapping the halves with their wooden sticks holding them together, I would nibble at the broken edges first, then be sure to catch the drippings as the hot weather worked on them. Sometimes, syrup would stick to the inside of the wrapper and I could lick that off, too.

I don't remember waiting very long to buy it, though. Neither the fellow or lady at the only checkout counter, nor I, had ever heard of a computer--what was that?--being in charge of collecting my money. I don't recall any of them ever grinning as I held out my nickel, but I bet they did. I would hear the register ring as I walked out. Today in a line like this, that darn thing would be melting down my arm by the time I could actually open it.

I thought about that as the fellow in front of me told the young lady at the checkout counter that he was there to make sure she had a job tomorrow. "Thank you," she said, looking at him briefly.

You're welcome. Just as it was my turn, the management buckled and opened up another human-based checkout line. I looked behind me. There were at least seven other grocery-laden carts there now. All but one of them were operated by people with graying hair. I felt like raising my fist in victory.

There are still some family-owned, small groceries around, but you have to look hard to find them. Slowly, they--and we--are being feasted upon by bigness, by efficiency, by the shrug-shoulderedness of consumerism. As they loom larger, we are reduced, one experience at a time, one checkout at a time. You can package items, but you can't package attitudes to be processed by bar codes. Or feelings. A surprising number of us, standing in line, said exactly that, resisting if for a fleeting moment the back-handedness of making money and making us into objects for that sole purpose. We may eventually lose the war, but it never feels bad to win a battle.

Be well. I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark