The Bag Had a Barcode

August sixth. Here is what happened. We were at the grocery store, the one four blocks from work, the one Simone likes because the produce section is actually cold, and we had maybe twelve items between us. Self-checkout. Easy. Except it wasn't, because every time Simone placed the reusable bag on the platform the machine rejected it, and then it accepted it, and then it beeped at us, and then it wanted us to wait for assistance, and then it didn't. For twenty minutes we stood there troubleshooting this like it was a work emergency.

I had already tried lifting the bag off and setting it back down. Simone had tried turning it a different direction. We had both leaned in very close to read the screen as if that would help. At one point I took a full step back to assess the situation from a different angle, which is when I noticed: Simone had, at some point in the process, scanned the barcode printed on the outside of the bag. The bag's own retail barcode. She had been trying to check the bag out as a grocery item. It was in the system. It had a price.

the moment Simone's exasperation started to crack

I could not explain to her what I was laughing at for a full thirty seconds because I was laughing too hard. She looked at the screen, looked at the bag, looked at me, and said, very evenly, 'I thought it was a loyalty scan.' Which made it worse. We eventually flagged someone over, got the bag voided out of the transaction, paid for our actual twelve items, and walked out into full August sun.

the walk out. still laughing. bag in hand.

She still maintains the barcode placement was misleading. She's not wrong, honestly. But I'm keeping this one.