Unexpected child... in the bagging area

I've not quite got my head around these self-service tills that have sprung up in supermarkets throughout the land. At first it appears to be a laudable attempt to wrest power from the grasp of the checkout girl overlords, and there's an amazing sense of power that first time you run an item past the scanner and see it's price appear on the screen and the friendly voice say:

"Beep. Please place the item... in the bagging area."

"Ha! It's all so easy! They wanted me to think it was hard! No longer will my every purchase by scrutinized by hatchet-faced matrons! I can buy anything! As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again!"

Then you scan your second item. A pair of girl's pants. The kind of thing you'd think twice about buying if you had to run it past the checkout person first.

"Beep. Please place the item..."

(There's always a slight pause here that's just long enough to make you wonder if the system is going to rebel against it's programming and shout something like "where the sun don't shine!")

"...in the bagging area."

"Yay!"

Third item.

"Beep. Approval needed."

"But... it's only gin! I like gin! I don't need your steenkin' approval if I want to sit around my house wearing nothing but girl's pants and drinking gin!"

"Please wait for an assistant."

So you wait for a surly teenager (who's about 2 years away from being able to legally buy gin himself) to come over from his master console and swipe his Magical +3 Card of Shopping Approval against your terminal. And have a good smirk at your girl's pants.

Then you realise that the feeling of shopping independence is entirely illusory. At any moment, and seemingly at random, your purchases can be inspected by the Shopping Gestapo.

Take last night's brief trip to the local Tescos. I'd collected a trolley of fairly innocuous goods, nothing I thought would raise the suspicions of the Shopping Gestapo, so I decided to use an automated till.

First item, a cheapy set-top FreeView box (to temporarily replace the dead Sky box).

"Beep. Approval needed. Under television licensing laws we are required to take your name and address on purchasing this item."

"But... it's not a television!"

I think the Surly Teenager agreed with me because he swiped through the approval without making any effort to take my name and address (although for all I know, the Tescos Central Customer Database was already displaying it on his ops terminal, along with my medical history, hat size and favourite flavour of yoghurt.)

The next few items go through with no complaints. Then I scan a 'fair trade' mango.

"Beep. Approval needed."

"WHY??? It's a mango! It's not alcoholic! It's not vaguely pointy! I'm not going to ferment it down the back of a radiator into a rudimentary mango hooch! I'm not going to harden it in the oven, whittle it into a dagger and use it in a gangland killing!"

"Please wait for an assistant."

"Is this a 'Fair Trade' thing? Are you worried that I'll re-sell the mango at a artificially low price to undercut and further impoverish the Burmese mango farmers?"

I'll never know. Surly Teenager swiped through the item with no explanation. I've decided I'm going to hollow out the mango and make it into an unlicensed television.

. . .

I was talking to the guy I work with about this and he reminded me of the time his wife was using an automated till and the message came up "unexpected item in the bagging area". She looked down and saw one of her kids was sitting in it. :-)