It seems like every week I come across another automated way for me to buy things. The post office has them for me to send things. I get a printed sticker that covers my entire envelope and I get change in Sacagawea dollar coins. They work well to give out as tips. Anyways...

At the grocery they have the self-checkouts, which are always never empty. It's usually someone really slow, who isn't down with scanning their own merchandise, and they always have their cart overflowing with stuff. I wonder how this is supposed to save me time. All it seems to do is save them from paying for another cashier.

The trend was at its worst in Amsterdam. I've never seen more automated stuff.

Schiphol may be an airport, but inside it looks more like a high-end shopping mall. I don't like malls, but I do like gadgets, so I was torn. Yet everything there was really expensive. I can't afford for an iPod even if comes from a vending machine.

Ah here's a pleasant memory, I blame a vending machine for getting me to smoke. I remember being sixteen and making up a lame excuse to get out of the house, "We're out of milk."

I would make a side trip to the Day's Inn and their hidden away vending machine. It was too me almost like a special ops mission. Of course when I was doing this in Madisonville, KY in 1992. It was legal at 16 for me to buy tobacco. The next year they changed the law to restrict it to 18, but even when I could legally buy in a store, I didn't. I think I was just insanely paranoid that somehow the store clerk would tell my mom.

I lost it.

Lost in Translation.