My plan was to buy a light bulb.

I stop at the store on my way home from work to buy a tiny, tiny light bulb to put in my new tiny lamp that I bought at Hobby Lobby for 50%.

So I am in the store…FYI the PriceCutter on East Battlefield is a wonderland. It has an entire organic food section and it is glorious. Very different from our old Price Cutter. The people that shop there wear all of their clothes including shoes and do not look like they are on drugs.

I find the light bulb section that is clearly marked. I get my light bulb and some carpet cleaner because the dog puked on the carpet again. I also grab some tooth brushes (because you can never have too many), and a bottle of wine because wine is good.

6:10pm must be a very popular time to shop. All of the checkout lanes are full so I make my way to the check-out-yourself-lane. I am not familiar with this style of checkout because I don’t use it. The overly pleasant sounding female voice coming out of these machines has always freaked me out. It also makes me feel a little like I’m in the book written by that guy whose name I do not remember…Brave New World. Orwell? I don’t remember.

People are now piling up behind me in the “Quick Check Out Lane”. I have no clue what I’m doing. I push all of what I deem to be the appropriate buttons and start scanning my items. Then I hear the freaky and oddly seductive voice.

“Please place item in the bag”. I place my light bulb in the bag

“Please place item in the bag”.

Okay it’s in the bag.

“Please place item in the bag."

The impatient woman waiting behind me says in an unnecessarily bitchy voice, “I think you need to put your item in the bag”.

Now I’m thinking, Really? Because the freak’n light bulb is very clearly in the bag.

“Thanks,” I say. I remind myself that I am a nice person.

After the little clerk guy talks with his freaky-voice-lady-check-out-machine, the damn thing accepts the fact that my item truly is in the bag. Now it is time to pay. Easy enough. As chance would have it this particular machine did not like my debit card. I kept getting this CARD ERROR message. Whatever that means. At this point there are like 5 people waiting behind me including the mean woman who is glaring at me. My face is red and I’m sweating.

“Maybe that is not a good card. Do you have something else?” the woman behind me says.

Now my face is on fire. I remind myself again that I am a nice person while I’m thinking lady maybe you should go to another lane and place your items in the bag because this is not working for me.

“Thanks but I think my card is fine."

So eventually they get the ridiculous machine to read my card and I take my light bulbs, carpet cleaner, toothbrushes, and wine and start to walk away. Then the machine’s voice has the nerve to say to me, “Thank you for using Quick Checkout.”

Oh you shut your mouth your you  freaky-electronic-lady. I am never doing this again.

The light bulb did not even fit in my new lamp. Which is so dumb and disappointing that I just have to laugh.