Cashier

“Mom, do you have to talk to everybody?” Yes. Yes, she did.

The trip to the grocery store was not a necessity, it was a social event for my mother. She was the kind of person you don’t want to get behind in the checkout line. She would strike up a conversation with the cashier, but it didn’t stop there.

Mom. 1948 photo.

She also talked to other customers in line, the produce manager, the butcher behind the counter, the bakery staff, the shelf stocker, the guy doing “cleanup in aisle 5”.

Her first job as a newlywed was in a local A&P grocery store. She wore that uniform proudly.

So, she must have felt quite at home there, for a lifetime.

But there was more to it than that.

She was incredibly lonely, starving for adult conversation, a social being who didn’t drive, was mostly stuck at home with 6 children and a husband who worked extra shifts to support the family.

My life is so different than hers, but I often find myself doing the very same thing.

There are times when I use that self-checkout, usually when in a hurry. But I’m often aware of how many jobs that system must have eliminated.

And I think of my mother. She would have been 90 years old last week.

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Post inspired by the news from Amazon. They are planning a brick and mortar grocery store that bypasses the cashier, purchases are automatically recorded and charged to your Amazon account as you exit the store. Somewhere, my mother is shaking her head.

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