Now, Seymour is no Luddite. High-speed Internet, cell-phone text-messaging, XM radio and other amenities are all available — and used — out here in Hempwallace. One of the favorite things we don’t have is a supermarket with one of those nice self-serve checkout lanes. So, Seymour loves to take advantage of those when on a trip to Rock City.

There are drawbacks, however.

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One seems to be the automated lanes’ inability to make proper change.

If you use cash or ask for an additional amount of money via your debit card, the machines at the big-chain grocery supermarket that is frequently used have an alarming habit of short-changing. It happens too frequently to be simple coincidence. Virtually every time change is to be dispensed it turns out that $5 is missing from the change tray. The cashier who is stationed nearby to monitor these machines is cheerful as she unlocks the machine and dispenses the additional fiver.

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Makes you wonder how many times this happened before counting change became a habit. Used to be the change would simply be scooped out of the tray and shoved in a pocket on the way out of the store.

Anybody have similar experiences? At other stores? I know Wal-Mart uses self-service checkout lanes in some stores, but their machines are so balky and prone to malfunction that it’s usually much easier to use the express checkout lane, which features an actual human.

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