The Late Night Supermarket

I like going to the supermarket late at night. We tend to find out where the closest 24-hr supermarkets are; maybe it's because we sometimes decide in the middle of the night that we need ice cream, or an electric blanket, or what have you. It's not the spontaneity that I like, it's the quiet. If you go shopping on an ordinary day, like all of the other suckers, you wait in line. You're forced to navigate around some stupid woman who is going aisle by aisle, just as you are, but in the opposite direction, so you pass in every aisle and she refuses to move her cart aside without you asking. You overhear parents muttering mean things to their disobedient children. You have to listen to, and avoid running over, their disobedient children. And you have to listen to the elderly comment on why something you're doing with your own child is incorrect.
At night, there are only a handful of people in the store. And when the store is enormous (it's even named "Giant"), that gives you a lot of luxury cruise space in every aisle. It's quiet enough that you can hear the hum of the refrigeration and the music sliding out of the cone-speakers hanging from the warehouse ceiling. These things I like.
What I do not like is the automated self check out. For one, there is limited space on the scale with the plastic sacks, so you end up trying to stack your groceries in order to avoid the machine's accusations that you are attempting to steal your produce. I never thought about scanning the bar code before, but some items really don't want to ring up. I've begun to respect the kind of experience that checkers must have to be able to swipe some of these products so casually and have them register at all.
When the machine doesn't realize that I have placed a product in the bag, it says to me, in a soothing voice, "Please place the item in the bag." "Please place the item in the bag." I try to scan my next item. "Please place the item in the bag." It won't scan because apparently the machine is still waiting for me to "Please place the [last] item in the bag." I've tried picking the product up and dropping it in again, but if the machine misses it on the first go, you have to wait for the single employee to notice your predicament and press the magic "get out of jail free" button at the command center up front. I used to go and ask for help. Now, I use a technique that gets their attention and makes me feel good. I don't know why, but reasoning with the calm machine in an irritated mode reminds me of a story. It makes me feel entertaining. So when the machine says, "Please place the item in the bag," I talk back to it. I say, "It is in the bag."
"Please place the item in the bag."
"I just put the item in the bag. I can't place the"
"Please place the item in the bag."
"You're not listening to me. The item is in the bag. Move on already!"
I just get louder and louder until the employee fixes things. Works like a charm.