Opinion Satire
The Price Moved Before I Did
Wendell Wheelwright, a shopping cart, on digital price tags that update faster than a cart with a bad front-left wheel can roll.
Based on real news: Grocery workers union calls on newly elected Democrats to ban electronic shelf labels (Business Insider)
Friends, I am a shopping cart. I am not fast. My front-left wheel has a mind of its own and the mind is mostly about the left. It takes me 94 seconds to get from the corral to Aisle 7 on a good day.
On Saturday a shopper pushed me toward the peanut butter. By the time we arrived the price had changed. By the time she reached for the jar it had changed again. I am told this is a routine wireless refresh. I am a wire basket. I have never been refreshed.
The grocery union would like the digital tags banned. I do not take sides on paper versus plastic, and I will not start with paper versus pixels. I will only say that a paper tag waits for you. It knows some of us take the long way, not because we want to but because of the wheel.
It is the one place in the lot where nothing changes.
Speaking of which, the caster. Order DSKU-CSTR-000004. For most of this year the tracking page said In Transit. This week it changed. It now says Delayed. My cousin in Garden Center says that is progress, because something has to be moving to be delayed. I have decided to believe her.
Here is what I know from 11 years of aisles. Prices go up and down. Carts go left and right, some more left than others. Shoppers mostly want to know the number before they pick up the jar. That is not too much to ask. That is just manners.
So read the tag fast if you have to. Take a picture. Then put the jar in my basket gently and let us go together at my speed. The price will be whatever it is by the time we get there. So will we.
And when you are done, please bring me back to the corral. It is the one place in the lot where nothing changes.
Terms in this story: Electronic Shelf Label (ESL)
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Riffing on: Grocery workers union calls on newly elected Democrats to ban electronic shelf labels, Business Insider