Asda and the Bag Issue.

I went into the Asda store in Uttoxeter this morning to pick up a couple of things I’d forgotten to get in Sainsbury’s on Wednesday. I took them to a self service till and pressed ‘Start.’

Now, ever since the government brought in a charge for plastic bags a few years ago (in a perfectly laudable attempt to reduce plastic waste), the self service screens everywhere have a page which asks how many bags you’re buying. I always use my own bags and so I pressed ‘None.’ Usually that’s the end of the bag issue, but not in Asda.

The computer in the Asda till doesn’t take your word for it; it tells you to ‘place your bag in the bagging area.’ I had a mental picture of its eyes narrowing with suspicion, but managed to ride that one and dutifully placed my backpack in the bagging area as instructed. I assumed that I would now be allowed to pay for the three items I was buying. (Any reasonable person would think so, wouldn’t they?) But the computer still wasn’t convinced and I was told to ‘wait while your bag is validated.’ One of the store lackeys eventually came to validate my bag, and I’m sorry to say that I was a little short with her. I know I shouldn’t have been; I know I should have apologised because it wasn’t her fault, but I was a bit miffed that a bloody computer playing nanny while presumably being attired in the uniform of a Vogon space ship captain should have the audacity to treat me this way. (Why it didn’t intone ‘resistance is useless’ I really can’t imagine.)

But this is how things are now in the UK. This is yet another example of the risk-avoidance mania currently creeping into so many aspects of life, in this case the risk that some dastardly ne’er-do-well might try to evade the law by sneaking off with a 5p carrier bag. Abject silliness is becoming a major infestation and I’m really not amused.