Yet Another Example of Man's Idiocy

So I'm at the supermarket with my mother the other day (it probably seems pathetic that I visit the supermarket with my mother at the age of 17, but I am what I am, and if that's a dork, then a dork I am) and the manned chackout lines are crowded. Not wanting to wait and eager to explore a suburban novelty, we head for the "automatic checkout station," a scan-it-yourself-bag-it-yourself area that is yet another way for businesses to stroke their greedy egos by eliminating jobs and salaries and replacing competent people with cold machinery.

After 15 minutes of struggling to scan items "just-so," and a request for assistance from a store worker (it is most ironic that we needed a person in order to help us use the machine properly), I was nearly ready to plant my foot in the screen, despite the slightly seductive (though nonetheless robotic) female voice within the apparatus. A little fair warning to those who know me: I may well have a psychotic break if I hear the phrase, "Two dollars and sixty-nine cents" chanted out of rhythm within the next week. Having to hear it a dozen times in excruciatingly fast succession is a punishment seemingly fit only for the most dastardly criminals.

Anyway, the moral of this story, dear readers, is that automated grocery checkout methods are to be avoided like the plague. That is, unless you don't mind frightening your fellow shoppers by screaming at the computer, "You stupid woman! I didn't remove any item from the bagging area! I will kill your children the next time you talk back to me!" I don't recommend it, but hey, we're all different, right?

Tomight's lyrics: "Lazy Flies," by Beck (yes, even the Teenage Old Fart himself listens to a little modern music now and again):
"Lazy flies all hovering above
The magistrate, he puts on his gloves
And he looks to the clouds
All pink and disheveled
There must be some blueprints,
Some creed of the devil
Inscribed in our minds.

A hideous game
Vanishes in thin air
The vanity of slaves
Who wants to be there?
To sweep the debris
To harness dead-horses
To ride in the sun
A life of confessions
Written in the dust.

Out in the mangroves
The mynah birds cry
In the shadows of sulfur
The trawlers drift by
They're chewing dried meat
in a House of disrepute
The dust of opiates
And syphilis patients
On brochure vacations

Fear has a glare that
Traps you like searchlights
The puritans stare
Their souls are fluorescent
The skin of a robot
Vibrates with pleasure
Matrons and gigolos
Carouse in the parlor
Their hand-grenade eyes
Impotent and blind.

A hideous stain
Vanishes in thin air
The vanity of slaves
Who wants to be there
To sweep the debris?
To harness dead-horses
To ride in the sun
A life of confessions
Written in the dust."