Flatcap Shops & Scans

Savepennies, our local supermarket, has instituted a new system. It’s called shop & scan. Basically, as you go round the store, you scan your goods, put them in carrier bags, and then pay at special tills on the way out. Well, that’s the theory.

This morning, they collared me and asked if I’d like to have a go. Always eager to try new toys, I said yes, and then learned I had to register to take a scanner round the shop.

I had to give them my name, address, postcode, two referees (I gave them Howard Webb and Dicky Bird. I know Dicky was technically an umpire, but hey, what do these kids know?) In addition, I had to give them parents’ names as guarantors. “Do you want the name of the cemetery thye’re buried in, too?” I asked as I signed the registration form.

In return, I was given a scanner, a tiny little infrared torch that you flash at the barcode. Her Indoors insisted I should be good at this because I’m always flashing tiny things at barmaids. I told her to leave my dentures out of it.

Off we tootled round the store and I was impressed. You can watch your bill mount up as you go along. The one thing I would say is, if you’re wearing clothing you bought from that store five years ago, as I was, make sure you’ve removed the label with the barcode on it. We’d hardly got as far as fresh bananas and I’d already added my jacket to the bill three times. After getting one of the staff to remove the entries for me, I confidently expected the bill to go back down to £11.37, but it stuck at £35.65. Her Indoors had been stood near the Slimfast display with her hand on the scan button and totalled up eight tins of vanilla flavoured milk shake which she wasn’t buying anyway. She hates vanilla.

Cheese was a bit problematic. I don’t know who packed it, but the barcode went round the corner, and no matter how I tried, I couldn’t get the light to bend. One of the staff told me, “You have to smooth out the package so the scanner can read it.” Note to self: next time, bring a steam iron if you want some cheese.

We didn’t risk fresh vegetables. You have to weigh and scan those, and I was worried we might end up with irradiated turnips.

It didn’t save us much time as we were going round. We still had the same arguments over whether to buy smoked or unsmoked bacon, and whether frozen kippers were good value at thirty bob a box. But it was when we go to the checkout that shop & scan proved a winner. All I had to do was aim the scanner that computer, and pay for it. Saved me the usual wait in line at the checkouts.

Or it would have done if we hadn’t been pulled for a random search.

I get this all the time. Her Indoors says it’s because of my obstructive attitude.

The lad who searched the bags explained it to me. “We’re just making sure you’ve scanned everything in your bags, sir.”

I took instant offence. “Do I look like the kind of bloke who’d try to sneak off with an extra tin of pineapple chunks?”

He looked at me and said, “Quite frankly, yes.”

I think it’s back to queuing at the checkouts next week.

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