Grocery stores are about to get worse

Imagine this: The cheerful, if slightly scolding voices of the self-checkout machines punctuate the steady hum of fluorescent lights. Please place the item in the bagging area. The messages ricochet across an Iowa grocery store, a kind of ambient chorus while, at one of the few remaining manned checkout lines, a cashier squints at his screen. He punches in a code. The monitor responds with a short, unmistakable drone — the kind that needs no translation: No.

The customer shifts, heat creeping up their neck, as another shopper drifts into the line behind them. “I don’t understand,” they say, glancing down at their EBT card. “I was able to buy these last time I was here.”

The cashier tries again. The computer buzzes, stubborn as ever. On the counter sits the offending item: a plastic cup of cut fruit from the deli, the kind that comes with a sealed lid and a disposable spoon tucked inside. It’s confusing, he thinks, because earlier that day he rang up a slice of cake from the bakery (fork included) and SNAP covered it without protest. The system approved it. Cake passed. Fruit did not.