Selfless Checkout

A Hartford area Target was left shaken today after a customer went through one of the store’s self-checkout lanes and didn’t make a big stink about it, multiple sources report.

“He just didn’t say a word about it,” says customer Jeanne Berkow, “even though he was doing their employees’ job for them.”

“He finished his transaction and started walking towards me,” says self-checkout host Nora Hagen, “and I was like ‘okay, here we go’, but he just like nodded and said ‘have a nice day’ and left. I was expecting at least like a ‘these things are so stupid’ or even something like ‘this is so much more convenient than the blah-bitty-blah’ or whatever, but nothing. It was eerie, man.”

Workers around the store describe the event as “bizarre” and “unreal”. Others insist the event never happened and state that “Nora is a damn liar, I don’t trust a word she says after how dirty she did Josh that time”.

Nora’s questionable integrity notwithstanding, actual witnesses to the event confirm reports that the man did indeed leave without comment.

“It’s kind of unprecedented,” says manager Keith Lawrenson. “All day long I’m dealing with people wanting to say something about the self-checkout lanes. It’s rather disconcerting that someone would leave without so much as a little quip one way or the other. It’s like, what’s this guy’s problem, you know?”

Looking further into the issue, we were able to glean the man’s name from his Target Circle card, which we will protect because people’s privacy is important. We went on Facebook, where people will often complain about self-checkout lanes and how nobody wants to work anymore, and found the customer’s profile.

Since leaving Target, the man in question has been active on social media, posting things like “Cat sitting this weekend, wish me luck!”, “Charlie Cox confirmed for Daredevil: Born Again reboot — WOOT!”, and “FAJITA NIGHT!!!!!”, but not a single mention on his own page nor in any group of his experience.

“The use of self-checkout lanes is one of those polarizing issues,” says sociologist Mark Vitale, “where a person feels morally superior to others no matter which side of the debate they’re on. The idea that someone would use one and not want to let others know they hated it or how much better they are than everyone else is beyond reason.”

The uncanny happening leaves us with several burning questions:

Who is this man? What are his motivations? What does he want from us? Is Daredevil: Born Again a full reboot or a continuation of the Netflix series?

Perhaps we’ll never know the answers to these questions, and maybe we wouldn’t want to know if we did. All we can do is wonder, speculate wildly, and hope the staff at the Hartford Target isn’t torn apart or driven mad by the mystery of the man who has no opinion on self-checkouts.