Against Self Check-Out

Human interaction is good for the soul--and maybe the wallet

Neighborhood Produce, Somerville MA

I generally avoid self-checkout lines. If you want me to work for you, put me on the payroll, I say. But seriously, they are just one more way to eliminate employees and increase profits. And frankly, they are a pain if you want to put something you’ve bought in your own backpack or bag and it already has other stuff in it…

Beyond that, that little bit of human interaction, comments on the weather (usually negative) or the cashier’s nail polish (positive, of course) or even suggestions for recipes that come from paying for something at a human-staffed checkout station are good for the soul. But the other day, my husband and I had a grocery store experience that made both our days.

We’ve recently been shopping as much as possible at Neighborhood Produce. It’s not a new store, but it’s new to us. There are two of them, and the one we go to opened in 2020. While I know there are some back rooms for storage and organizing, the shopping area is pretty small. I think it’s about the size of our living room, and we live in a small house (1200 square feet).

It has two cashiers, and true to its name, a good selection of produce, much of it locally sourced, as well as some bulk grains, coffees, herbs and spices, etc. etc. For such a small size, it also has a lot if dairy basics, including yogurt, tofu, plant-based milks, and even some meats (which I don’t really look at) as well as some canned and packaged goods.

We went in on Saturday, and my husband was wearing the SWEATER. He had received so many compliments on this sweater already, but things got a little crazy in Neighborhood Produce.

(The photo he is holding is a picture of his mother, Donna Irwin (1928–2016). She knit the sweater for herself. (She liked some of her clothes big and baggy.) She loved sheep—she had life-size sheep-shaped plywood cutouts in her front yard that she covered with fleece—and chickens.

(I’m annoyed I don’t have any photos of those sheep or her chicken coop, which included hanging plants and a fan for coolness in summer or her cute little house, which was a former worker’s cottage on the edge of a DuPont estate in Wilmington, Delaware. But here’s a photo of “sheep” from an exhibit in Frankfurt, Germany. Their “fleece’ is made of tangled landline wire and their hooves are landline receivers. Don’t you love human beings and the art they create (as opposed to self-checkout)?)

Sheep in Frankfurt, Germany

Anyway, one of the cashiers in Neighborhood Produce complimented Bob on his sweater while we were shopping. He thanked her, and then he told me that it was something like the 20th compliment he’d gotten on the sweater in recent weeks. It’s a small store, remember, so I guess the other cashier heard our conversation. When we finished our shopping and went to check out, she told us that everyone in the store—about eight people—was talking about the sweater. Probably an exaggeration, but still funny.

Then I told her that Bob’s mom had knitted it, and that she had collected the hair from her sheltie dog, and had it made into yarn.

She had a comb sort of like this big one

I don’t know if the light-colored background was from the dog (whose name was Holly—you can see the beginnings of Holly’s name and image on Bob’s left sleeve) or only the darker shades used for the sheep.

A sheltie, not Donna’s

Anyway, this story just about blew the cashier’s mind. “I’m giving you a discount!” she cried, and just like that, she wiped 10% off our grocery bill.

Well, that was pretty cool, but not as cool as the sense of connection we felt with the cashiers in that little grocery store. By the time we left, we were both laughing, and somehow the day, which had been just fine before, became truly delightful.