Whether you watch what was once the best show on television or not, you should know that The Simpsons is a harbinger of truth. In the opening sequence, the Simpson's youngest child, Maggie, is grabbed from a shopping cart by a grocery clerk and run across an optical price code reader. (For those who have not recorded the program and frame frozen this scene, Maggie retrieves a price of eight hundred something dollars and some change from the store's data base.)
Anyone who has ever shopped at one of the major Marts (Wal-Mart, K-Mart, HyperMart, MartMart) knows that the nerve center of the contemporary discount store is the Universal Price Code reader. This device is capable of "looking" at a series of stripes and ascertaining on what object those stripes appear as well as the size, weight, suggested retail price, sale price, and incorrect price of that object. The clerk operating the machine has no idea what the price of anything is and responds to price questions by picking up the panic phone and calling for a price check. Actual retail prices rarely appear on merchandise any more, but may be obscurely marked on the shelf somewhere along with useful comparative shopping information. In case you slept through home economics or took wood shop instead, you can quickly learn by reading grocery store shelves that pickles in a small jar cost more per pickle than pickles by the keg.
This does not mean that you can quickly learn by reading grocery store shelves just what a jar or keg of pickles costs. If you can, you will have to trust that the posted price is the same as that entered in the store's data base or memorize the price of everything you buy and watch closely as prices display at light speed at the checkout counter. If you catch a mistake, you are awarded by paying the correct price as verified by a price check!
Price checks are self-inflicted practical jokes. It's not uncommon for three levels of discount store management to get involved in deducing: a) exactly what the object is whose price is in question b), exactly where in the store such an object would be located, and c) if the object is on sale. The answers to all of these questions are first sought by thoroughly interrogating the hapless shopper desiring to purchase the mystery item.
"On what row were you shopping when you first saw this product? Do you remember seeing a price? Were there any witnesses? Where were you when the Blew Lite Spatial announcement began? Paper or plastic?"
If you survive the inquisition, don't write a check. Fortunately most stores still accept cash, and it is the fastest method of payment. Writing a check results in publishing your age. At least one of the major 'Marts enters this information into its cash register and displays it far longer than any price, purchase amount, or identification number. Credit cards can often be scanned for pertinent information, but if subjected to radiation in purses, pocket books, and wallets emitted from postage stamps, school photos, and cash, your encoded life credit history is lost. Watching a checkout clerk enter every number on a credit card plus a nine-digit "zip" code six times to a tuneless succession of beeps is almost as enjoyable as teeth cleaning. (If the dentist uses cinnamon flavored floss, then there's no contest.)
As the transaction (and we use the term loosely) proceeds, the cash register/computer/interrogation device clearly displays instructions for its operator:
ENTER AMOUNT TENDERED DOB* MM/DD/YY CHANGE IS $X.XX DOB MM/DD/YY OPEN CASH DRAWER DOB MM/DD/YY CLOSE CASH DRAWER INHALE EXHALE INHALE EXHALE
If the MartMart cashier correctly counts your change and finally hands you a receipt, don't sigh with relief quite yet--you still must remember where you parked.