Columnist Susan Snyder: Aisle not condone scanning

Friday, April 23, 2004 | 8:16 a.m.

I don't want to scan my own groceries.

I want someone else to do it and for the same reasons I want someone else to milk the cows, pluck the chickens and grow the bell peppers, which someone else places in the sack.

Then, I will give money to the person behind the counter and walk out.

I already pay for the privilege of loading, unloading, putting away, cooking and cleaning up after the groceries. Now I'm supposed to get a kick out of ringing them up myself, too?

No. I am tired of being told to do it myself when no one asked whether I wanted to do it all.

But evidently there are a lot of people who want to scan their own groceries. The lanes for them are popping up in new supermarkets across the valley.

"It's going into stores where we think there is a customer base for it," Stacia Levenfeld, Albertson's spokeswoman, said. "Older customers tend to like it because they like to be able to track their prices."

My 78-year-old mother knows prices-by-the-ounce and can remember the amount of money she possesses right down to the penny stuck to the Rolaids at the bottom of her purse. But I cannot fathom standing behind her in line as she scans her own groceries.

Of course, my judgment is clouded. My brother and I witnessed her learning to use e-mail. (She reads this online. I just bought a very expensive dinner.)

Some critics see self-checkout lanes the same way Oregon saw self-serve gasoline pumps -- as job thieves. Oregon law forbids customers from pumping their own gas. They would rather have people be paid to do that.

Call me Oregon.

But Levenfeld says no jobs were harmed in the creation of these checkouts.

"We have redistributed the talent," she said.

That means checkout clerks do other stuff. At least one or two are assigned to help those who have trouble with the self-scanning machines. This not only keeps the job market intact, it prevents having to replace the scanners every couple of weeks.

For if you haven't seen one of these lanes, you undoubtedly have heard one. Nothing says, "self-scan" like a middle-age woman coming unglued over a bag of Jonagold apples that will not register.

"Fine! So they're FREE! HAHAHAHAHAHA!" And into the bag they go.

"Please remove the items from the bag," an impertinent computer voice says. "Please scan your next item."

The night the sugar-cookie code on the bakery bin didn't match the one logged into the scanning system, the register said I was buying bagels.

The Redistributed Talent was already helping some woman weeping over a bag of green beans in the next lane, so I paid for bagels and ate cookies. (Bagels cost more.)

I am certain if one is in a hurry, the self-scanning machines help one be on one's merry way.

Me? I'll stand in line with a bunch of strangers, trying to separate the dog people from the cat people and the overworked moms from the singles headed to dinner at someone else's house.

Some days, it's the only time I get to stand still and do nothing.