[Cc'd to r.a.d in case David Poole has any comments. Followups to
misc.consumers]

My wife is sick with a nasty cold/flu/whatever. So I walked over to
the neighborhood CVS to pick up some NyQuil. When I got up to the
front there was a long line at the regular registers, but the
self-checkout was open, so I walked over to it and started to check
out.

The NyQuil scanned OK, and the correct price and description came up,
but when I put it into the bag the system said the weight was wrong.
So I took it back out of the bag and then put it back in. Then the POS
(Piece Of sh.t) terminal complained that I had put an "unscanned item"
into my bag and asked me to take it out.

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Over?

So I managed to grab a store employee to help me out. She explained
that the cough medicines are "age restricted" and that a store
employee needed to verify that I was over 18 before the sale could be
rung up. First of all, not letting people under 18 buy cough medicine
is f.cking STUPID, and second of all, why can't the POS terminal just
SAY THAT instead of something totally misleading like my item doesn't
weigh the right amount?

So the employee keys in some sort of override and tells the POS
terminal that I am 25 years old. Things seem to be working again, so
she leaves.

I click "pay" and "credit card," then swipe my American Express. After
chugging for a minute or so, the POS tells me that "your transaction
cannot be processed at this time. Please select another payment
method."

Listen, you tin-plated piece of electronic junk, if I wanted to pay
using a different method, I would have selected that method in the
first place!! So I flag down another employee, who proceeds to tell me
that the cough syrups are "age restricted" and that's probably why the
sale didn't go though(!!!)

So she cancels everything out (at least I hope she did! I'm going to
have to keep a close eye on my statements now), re-scans the NyQuil,
re-enters the age verification (saying I'm 55 this time), and this
time my American Express card goes through without a hitch.

Sheesh, it would have been faster if I had just waited in that long
a.s line for the human cashier!

Who programs these self-checkout POS stations, anyway? Whoever did
this one should be immediately FIRED and BLACKBALLED from the computer
industry for life...