Bob Sanders: Attendants needed at check-out lanes

Change is not always progress. Examples: I don’t buy much at Wal-Mart because when I do, I spend way too much time and shoe leather trying to find a place to pay. They have lots of lanes, but you’ll notice at most of them, nobody’s there.

Now, I’ve seen these school kids go through these abandoned lanes and manipulate their credit cards somehow and, finally (it’s not a fast process even for them) get a receipt or something to show they have paid, and go on their way.

Not me.

I want a person, a human, a homo sapien, there by the cash register to tell me how much I owe and give back any change and bag of goodies.

I have a credit card. I don’t really approve of them, but, being a modern, “with it” guy, I have one. And if I buy something and don’t have enough cash to pay for it, I’ll give them my credit card and they’ll do something with it and hand it back and I sign something. I can handle that.

But don’t put me in a line or at a gas pump with nothing there except a machine that I’m supposed to feed my card into and punch some buttons. I’m lost. Please. Helpless. Get some people there.

Speaking of gas, am I the only person who yearns for the good ol’ days? Time marches on. I know that. But sometimes it makes a wrong turn.

Look back with me for a moment. Remember how it was? You’d drive your late model De Soto onto the filling station apron and park by the Woco-Pep pump. An attendant would rush out and ask what could he do for you, and you’d say, “Fill ‘er up,” or, perhaps if you were in your daddy’s car on a Saturday night girl hunting expedition, you’d say, “Let’s see, about two dollars’ worth, please.” That’d maybe get you through the night of “ridin’ around.”

And he would courteously insert the nozzle, and while the gas was pumping, he’d wipe off the windshield, pop the hood and check the oil; and if you asked nicely, he’d check the pressure in your tires.

Compare that lovely picture with now. You try to figure out the sequence of events on this particular pump — they’re all different — then insert the card in this way, and when that doesn’t work, you turn it over and stick it in the slot another way; and if you’re lucky that might work ... if you have punched the right buttons. I may, about the time I become fluent in Arabic.

Look, Mr. President. You’re desperately trying to find jobs for people.

Here’s what you do. Make it a law to have a live person at every check-out lane, and an attendant to pump, wipe and check at every filling station.

Do the math. That would cure unemployment and make life so much nicer for everybody.

Bob Sanders is a longtime radio personality with WAUD in Auburn and writes a weekly column for the Opelika-Auburn News.