The DU Lounge

Went to Walmart today to pick up a few things. Headed to the self-checkouts. The one that became available was last used by a woman wearing a mask. Paranoia immediately struck!

There was a Walmart employee monitoring the self-checkout area. I approached her and asked if the available checkout screen could be wiped down.

She looked at me like I was from Mars.

"It's clean," she said.

"The last customer there was wearing a mask," I replied. "She's quite possibly sick and maybe her hands were full of germs. I would like it to be wiped, please. I can do it myself if you bring the cleanser and some paper towel."

So she reluctantly wandered off and brought back the spray bottle and some paper towel (I thought later that maybe she suspected I was trying to distract her as part of some scheme to shoplift a bunch of stuff, but there's security cameras everywhere anyway).

I gave the touch screen and the keypad for payment processing a good wipe down.

"Just so you're aware, sir, we don't do this after every customer," she said.

"That's fine," I told her. "But the last person here may not have been physically well. I don't want to take any chances."

Funny. During Covid, everything was wiped constantly. Now, you have to fight to get a bit of disinfectant.