Let's Not Get Carried Away with Self-Checkout
Everyone, by now, is familiar with self-checkout. Self-checkout is what happens when you go to a large department store that carries various items, including clothing, furniture and mirrors, and you check yourself out in one of those mirrors.
It seems to me that there’s too much self-checkout going on in the world. I blame technology for this. Technology has promoted our obsession with self-checkout.
About a century ago, people relied only on mirrors for self-checkout. The glass mirrors we use today were invented in 1835. Before that, it was far less common for humans to fall in love with themselves. Sure, primitive mirrors existed for centuries, but people did not spend much time checking themselves out in silver plates and puddles.
When the glass mirror was first invented, you had to go to a special exhibition and wait in a long line to look at yourself in this magical object. If you got carried away and stared at yourself too long, you’d hear yells from behind, such as “Hey, keep the line moving, pretty boy” and “Don’t use up all the magic on yourself! We’ve got faces too.”
It was also the first time that someone asked the question, “Do we really have to stand in line for self-checkout?”
Technology allowed glass mirrors to be mass-produced, and eventually they ended up in every household. This was a game-changer for many people. They could now stare at themselves for as long as they wanted. Nobody would be checking them out while they were checking themselves out.
The invention of the modern mirror was soon followed by the invention of photography. Wealthy people could go to studios and get their images captured for posterity. Studio photography continued to be popular in the 20th century, largely because the pictures turned out well. Professional photographers could not only take photos with superior equipment in perfect lighting, they could make pimples and blackheads magically disappear. Touching up photos to erase blemishes was perfectly acceptable, as long as the photos were used for non-journalistic purposes such as attracting a potential marriage partner. “But he looked so handsome in his photo” was a common thought during arranged marriages.
Eventually cameras became household items and people could take as many pictures of themselves as they wanted. But it wasn’t until the smartphone came along that self-checkout reached its peak. People could now take selfies, thousands of them, and share the very best on social media. They could take pictures of themselves in various settings. “This is me at a Trump rally; this is me breaking into the U.S. Capitol; this is me behind bars.”
Considering the obsession with self-checkout, it didn’t surprise me to see an article in The Atlantic magazine entitled “Self-checkout is a failed experiment.”
But when I read the article, it became apparent that the writer was referring to another form of self-checkout, in which stores get customers to serve as employees without paying them and without reducing prices.
Many stores around the world have introduced self-checkout. Some customers were initially excited about it, especially when they saw a large sign that said “Self-Checkout.” But they soon realized that they were expected to do some work.
Thankfully, a number of stores have installed cameras and a small screen at every self-checkout register, hoping to deter theft. This allows customers to look at themselves on the screen while they’re scanning items.
You can’t have self-checkout without a little self-checkout.
SHORT STORY
WORLD RECORD HOLDER
On our way to school, Raju and I would pass the house with the mesmerizing sign. It was about halfway down Sundaram Street, barely five minutes’ walk from Royal Matriculation School. We would avoid the shortcut across the grassy vacant lot behind K.V. Pharmacy, so we could stop and stare at the two-story house with a large wrap-around balcony and a rusty grey Ambassador parked forever in the car port. We would stand briefly under a tamarind tree and wonder what amazing feat the occupant of the house had accomplished.
“It must be weight-lifting,” Raju said one morning. “I bet he has big muscles and lifted a cow with one hand.”
“Just one cow? That wouldn’t be enough to set a world record.”
“Then maybe it was an elephant.”
“No, it must be something to do with hair. I bet he has the longest mustache in the world.”
I pictured a man with such a long mustache that it curled around his body hundreds of times, making him look like a spool of thread. A week earlier, my father had taken me to the barbershop, where I had seen several long mustaches. One snaked across the upper lip of Venugopal, the young but balding barber, while others were in a magazine my father thumbed through as we waited our turn, a glossy monthly called Mustache Digest.
Read the rest of this short story in The Bangalore Review.
So a guy who is good at puns (mirrors as self-checkout, great concept) moves from India to Indiana? (I scanned the Bangalore Review article, will read it later, but I saw the tag at the end). I wish I could make up stuff like that.