Went shopping yesterday. Did self-checkout. Left behind a loaf of bread. No idea how I managed that. Partly, I think I just had too many items and the self-checkout at my local big box store is tedious because they want to weigh everything, and I get in a hurry, and don’t read the screens, and get flustered. Heck, I once double charged myself for an item and didn’t realize it until I got home.

Self-checkout at most stores is pretty simple, and I usually prefer it. But I don’t like it for grocery shopping. Nope. Not at all. Maybe it’s just me being old. Although now that I write this, I can feel the ancient bile rising in my system, the stuff that says, I can do this. I believe what I feel is the girding my loins for battle feeling, the one that allows the brain to really, really concentrate on the job at hand, because nothing or anyone is going to defeat me, especially a digital scanner and scale. I need to win.

And I thought I was done with the need to win. Well, there you go. I guess it’s hardwired into the old brain. I suppose its okay to let it out for something like self-checkout at the grocery store. But mostly I try to keep it under wraps because no one wants to hang around with a guy who thinks the world is a jungle fight. And those are the lessons you learn late in life and wished you’d have learned them sooner. But what’s done is done and the only thing to do now is deal with the present, and try to go out on a high note.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver's Tale