> Paying It Forward at Self Checkout

I found a way to pay it forward every time I'm at the grocery store.

You offer to buy the cashier a candy bar. Real simple. Real pure. The kind of small act that makes the world feel less like a meat grinder for a second.

I do it every time I use the self checkout line.

Stand there with my sad little cart of frozen pizza and monster energy, look the machine dead in its barcode scanner eye, and say out loud, "Hey, you want a Snickers? On me. You've been scanning your heart out all shift."

The machine does not answer. It never does. It just beeps at me like I fuqed up the produce code again.

I still put the candy bar on the scale. I still pay for it. I still leave it sitting there on the bagging area like a little sacrifice to the gods of retail.

One time a guy behind me asked what the hell I was doing. I told him. He nodded like he understood something deep. Then he did the same thing with a Twix. We made eye contact. It was almost spiritual.

Sometimes I buy two. One for the machine that just judged my bananas, one for the ghost of the cashier who used to stand there before corporate decided humans were optional.

Pay it forward, king. Even if the only thing listening is a steel box that wants you to put the item in the bagging area.