Brian Lair on WNYC.

Recently I was at a CBS and I was checking out and I saw, oh, there's nobody in line for the regular cashier.

There's only a line at self-checkout.

So I thought, well, I'm going to go to the regular cashier.

And then I realized there was no regular cashier.

There was only one employee, and that person was helping the people at self-checkout when they needed help.

So now we're going to end today's show

with your calls on a strange phenomenon related to that that you may have witnessed at your own

local store or even be a part of. It's safe to say that most of us hate waiting in lines, right?

Unless we're waiting for something really great, concert tickets maybe,

it's natural that we would avoid a long snaking line where there's a shorter one available.

But recently, people have been defying this little slice of human nature.

Many people are reportedly anyway choosing to brave a longer self-checkout line at the store if it means avoiding the short human interaction we would have with the cashier.

At least that's according to Valerie Trapp from the Atlantic.

She says this willingness to wait longer for self-checkout hints at how people make plenty of imperfect decisions every day,

but it could also point to a change in the way that Americans interact with one another.

Many of us, she writes, would rather not interact at all.

So, listeners, does this sound like you?

Do you choose self-checkout, even if it means a longer wait time and a line?

Is this a conscious choice or something you find yourself doing on autopilot by now?

Call and tell us your stories, true confessions or however you want to frame it.

212-433, WNYC, 212, 433, 9692.

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