Welcome to Unsocial Food Shopping!
By Tina Valin
Food Shopping has been re-imagined by Amazon Go!
What I can gather from information on Amazon's website is their new fangled technology works kind of like this - basically you walk into an Amazon Go grocery store and pick out the items you want and an app adds up the stuff you toss into your cart and then they charge you when you exit the store.
No longer will you have to wait in line to be checked out! But what Amazon doesn't understand is that's what makes shopping so much fun - at least for me.
Here Are My Top Ten Reasons Why I Love Standing In A Checkout Line:
1. You get to spy on all the weird products other people will be eating and sometimes you even discover something you might like.
2. It's an opportunity to flirt with the neighborhood hotties or discover a mysterious stranger who bears a striking resemblance to your fantasy celebrity. Oh shit - that really is that celebrity! Hard to recognize them in sweats - no makeup - greasy hair - and being out of context in a supermarket!
3. I love being in easy reach of the shelves that are stocked with forbidden candy and snacks you swore you wouldn't lunge for before you entered the store - but now that you waited so long to checkout you owe yourself a reward and must give in to temptation. Later on, when you watch your favorite TV show and whip out your impressive stash of chocolate bars and chips and you feel ashamed of yourself for committing your junk food sins but somehow that sense of personal failure doesn't prevent you from gobbling them up anyway and all is good in the world.
4. When you are almost finished checking out - the cashier discovers you selected a leaky container of almond milk and a member of the store's staff scurries off to replace it for you while you check your texts.
5. Buying Lottery tickets and postage stamps is a breeze.
6. Getting cash back at the press of a button saves you a trip to the bank.
7. Coupons!
8. Usually someone at a traditional supermarket bags your groceries for you and offers to help load them into your cart. But I always feel too guilty using that service because it should be available without any delays for people with physical challenges - and it's a necessity not an option for them. Who will do that at Amazon go?
9. I enjoy chatting with my friendly cashier who always seems so pleased to see me.
10. However, the most important thing about standing in line is you get to indulge in your guilty pleasure of thumbing through the sleazy tabloids while you pretend to be perusing a home improvement magazine.
If I used Amazon Go I would miss all of the above! But I'm sure in time I'd get used to the new way to shop too. Humans forget things quickly and can adapt to almost anything except Trump!
The major downside to these kinds of advances in technology is the devastating job loss which allows follows. A much lower consequence is that more speedy food shopping means you will be rushing around like a maniac trying to break your previous shopping time records and have no opportunities for direct human contact. Life is enough of a rat race! We savor the pleasure of almost nothing today and casual conversation is becoming a lost art.
I'd be totally in favor of Amazon creating a new way of grocery shopping if it meant that my cart would automatically be returned to the front of the store by a human - not a robot - and that person came home with me and helped lug my groceries up the stairs and then put everything away in all the right places! Now that's something I could get really excited about!
