“Would you like to save 20% on your purchase?” a sweet as sugar voice whispers behind me.
“No, thank you,” I respond, shrugging my shoulders.
“It only takes a minute,” she coos.
“No, thanks,” I coo back, focused on sliding bar codes across scanners.
“But a (store) credit card could save you about $20 right now, plus you’d get all kinds of benefits,” the voice insists.
“That’s OK,” I say. “I’m good.”
“You’re good with spending more than you have to,” the voice quips.
“Yep,” I say, ringing up my next item.
“Can I ask you a question,” she continues, without pausing to let me say, “No.”
“Why don’t you want our store card?”
I sigh, and remind myself it isn’t this pushy woman’s fault that everybody and their brother is trying to sell me something today, that shopping has become a mixed bag of being encouraged to buy, buy, buy while being simultaneously shamed for having bought, bought, bought.
Buy local, help the economy. Don’t buy anything, spare the landfill.
Eat out, save restaurants. Eat at home, save your health.
More Top Picks Best Amazon Prime Day Car Vacuum Deals 2026
Order online, avoid the hassles. Shop in person, save the environment.
It isn’t her fault that, increasingly, America is replacing customer service with “sales opportunities.”
It isn’t her fault that my wallet is already bursting at the seams with loyalty cards, medical cards and debit/credit cards.
And it’s certainly not her fault that, despite hating the very idea of self-checkout, I have become a frequent user of it in order to avoid being pitched yet another thing by a real cashier. I don’t want to apply for another credit card. I don’t want to join another loyalty program. I don’t want the app. And I don’t want to “round up” the change for some cause that I will never be able to verify.
On top of all that, having to say this again and again is demoralizing. It makes me sound and feel like the bad guy. So, I do my best to work around it.
Evidently, I am not alone in my quest to embrace technology as a means of avoiding humans. It seems so many others are doing it that now stores are sending the displaced former cashiers to the automated self-checkout stations to put on the squeeze. Ugh.
No, none of that is her fault.
But it is her fault that she doesn’t know when to stop.
“Look,” I say, turning my face to hers. “I’m not interested. I just want to ring up my items and get out of here.”
She bristles. “But this is such a nice store. Why would you want to leave? And why don’t you want the card?”
Now, on the verge of anger, I say, briskly, “I don’t have to tell you anything, but I will: I have a credit card that I am happy with. I don’t need another one.”
She smiles and begin to extol the many features that make this card better than anything I could already have.
“Why isn’t it enough that I’m here at all?” I ask. “Why do you feel compelled to sell me something I already told you I don’t want? It makes me hate shopping. It makes me hate being here.”
She feigns horror.
“But this store is so much nicer than other stores. (This store) is the best,” she said.
“I’m glad you like your work,” I say, now wondering if she is perhaps some kind of robot programmed to be relentless.
More Top Picks Sony Xb10
I bag my last item and hit the button for an old-fashioned printed receipt. Unable to form the words, “thank you,” I instead mutter, “I have other things to do now.”
“Have a nice day,” she rubs salt in the wound. “And come back soon.”
I carry my goods and my battle fatigue to the car, promising to the universe that I will never return.
That’s OK, the universe assures me. “Go home, lick your wounds. You’ll be back. This is America. The sun never sets on a chance to upsell you something.”
Donna Vickroy is an award-winning reporter, editor and columnist who worked for the Daily Southtown for 38 years. She can be reached at [email protected].