Thank you, peeps, for sharing your amazement at the scanners at Macy’s. It’s good to know that I’m not the only one who buys shoes while also picking up milk or diapers, at vast self-service shoe places or at consignment shops! And if Alicia hasn’t seen them, then my guess is that they haven’t been out very long at all.
Anyway, yesterday there was another “invention”/application of an age old invention that cuaght me off guard. We went to one of those arcade/playland places when our plans to go the museum were thwarted by the 50,000 other people who had the same idea. MAM had a ball in the ball pits (not thinking about germs, not thinking about germs, not thinking about germs…) and eventually we bought some tokens to play skee ball and what not.
When we were done, MAM was ready for a prize or two, and so I counted our tickets and steered her toward the proper display case. You know the one–the one with the plastic balls, snakes, coin purses and yo-yo’s. We were no wherer near the number of tickets needed for anything plush or inflatable, but she was happy with a Koosh-like thingy and a sucker.
On to the Demise of Youth, Math and all that is Holy.
When we reach the counter, I handed my tickets to the kind teen behind the counter and ordered a pink Koosh and a red sucker. He looked at me and said, “Oh, did you already count your tickets or something?”
(Why yes Sparky, yes I did. How could I know what prizes we could get if I didn’t count my ever-loving tickets? I mean, really.)
He then proceeded to place our tickets on a scale. A scale that weighed in tickets. So my ticket collection “weighed” 105–just enough for a koosh and a sucker. Talk about bringing automated/mindlessness to a whole new level.
The kid was shockedt that I had handed him the right number of tickets for my pre-count order.
What can I say? I’m advanced like that.
