It’s only 5 feet long. It’s not like Columbus’ journey to the new world. The conveyor belt goes in only one direction. There isn’t a threat of a crew mutiny about falling off the edge of the Earth. It’s a super market check out line. There’s only one person on the other side of the register. It’s not brain surgery right?
So how does food you buy get lost?
It’s not like this is a black hole where items just disappear into stellar matter like the warp drive on a star ship.
It should be in a bag but it isn’t, and that pisses me off.
It all starts on a Saturday morning. It’s calm, the store is practically empty. I actually hear crickets in the bakery.
I am at check out counter 3, personally taking each item out of the shopping cart and placing it on the conveyor belt.
I watch as the mayonnaise and bread roll forward toward the clerk.
I continue to place items in the same space as the clerk picks up each product, and scans it.
Then the clerk slides the food product to the catch basin where a bag boy puts that item in a bag.
It’s all so simplistic. If only everything in life was this easy, this efficient.
I get home and want to wash the scuzz off my teeth and it strikes me: WHERE IS MY COLGATE?
It’s not in the bag? Where did it go?
Damn it.
There it is on my receipt, Colgate $2.99. I paid for it. But where is that tube of toothpaste?
It isn’t home? It isn’t in my car? I check the fridge four times. I check the back of my car twice.
Did it fall out in the parking lot? Did it get lost in the catch basin? Did the bag boy pocket it when nobody was looking.
Did the conveyor belt fairy visit the store and steal my minty fresh mouth product?
All I know is this is frustrating. Now I have to go back and talk to a supervisor and show them my receipt and explain how they lost my tube of toothpaste. Maybe they believe me. Maybe they think I’m that guy hording toothpaste for the end of days. I don’t know.
I am not a thief trying to scam their company but maybe they will think I am.
What a pain in my ass.
5 feet. One cashier. One conveyor belt. How does a product just disappear?
So I go back to the store and show her my receipt.
“Nobody reported any extra food left behind.”
I stare at her.
She seems annoyed as she tells me to go get another tube.
The tube is replaced but it still makes me wonder.
Where the hell did it go?
Life’s Crazy.™