From A Distance

 Remember the blip? Well, it was more than a blip really. More like a pandemic. It is now far enough in the rear view mirror that many of the things that we invented to get through the prolonged isolation have become part of the firmament. For instance, I don't know if I can simply wait a week for a new episode of my favorite TV show to appear. Binging is now a staple of our household. We decide when we watch and if we want to watch the whole thing in one sitting, so be it. No network executives are going to tell us how to program our lives. 

The whole concept of streaming movies has become so de rigueur that the hassle of masking up and heading out to a movie theater to sit uncomfortably close to a bunch of strangers whose vaccination status is unknown makes sitting on the couch and waiting a few weeks infinitely more pleasurable. Not so much the masking these days, or even the vaccinations as much as a room full of strangers. Who needs all that interaction? 

Well, as it turns out, I do. I still love to have someone tear my ticket and encourage me to "enjoy the show." I like spending too much on popcorn and Junior Mints. I like that odd sense of community found in a darkened theater. When we all laugh or gasp as one. When we emerge out of that darkness, chattering away about what we just saw. 

Which is why I am so terribly ambivalent about the news that Safeway stores, along with many other retailers, are getting rid of the self-checkout lanes that became so much a part of life during COVID. As an affirmed introvert, I looked on this as a great advancement. Being allowed to scan my own barcodes and fill my own bags with the necessities of life seemed like a gift. No more idle chit-chat. No more wondering what mild judgements were being passed on my frozen pizzas and Oreos. My groceries, my business, thank you very much. 

But apparently in many neighborhoods, this was also a great big hole for inventory to simply walk out of the store without being paid for. Others, far less honorable than myself, were using this portal as a way to stretch their food dollars. Which makes sense to me now, not unlike the need for Netflix to tighten up their policy on password sharing. Nothing is free, after all. As those urban poets, The Dead Kennedys once asserted, "Give me convenience or give me death." 

Amen.