But at least he's not a thief...

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

…since he did leave the crowbar behind after he’d smashed the –

Well. Let’s go back to the beginning, shall we?

So a man goes into a Home Depot to buy a crowbar and a hacksaw. He decides to go through the self-checkout. But when it’s his turn to use the machine:

as a manager told an officer, the man accidentally hit the button on the computer screen for Spanish.

That was the tipping point for this consumer.

He became “frustrated that the machine was speaking Spanish,” the police report says.

So, instead of asking for help, he let loose a blow with the pry bar and shattered the computer. He ran from the store and made a beeline to some railroad tracks, the report said.

A Seattle police officer searched for the man, but didn’t find him.

The manager believes he caused about $10,000 in damage. He left the pry bar in his shopping cart.

That’ll show those damned illegal ATMs! :mad:

[Khampelf]

Extreme zenophobia, or poor impulse control? I guess we’ll never know.

Just as well, sounds like he shouldn’t have a crowbar.

[The_Hamster_King]

@The Sonoran Lizard King

Extreme zenophobia, or poor impulse control

Poor impulse control. If it had been extreme zenophobia, he never would have made it out the door … .

[Rick]

From the comments at the bottom of the story

The self check-out stations at Home Depot work about as well as the rest of their employees. Dang, Mother Teresa would have lost it if she had to use one of those worthless machines.

Snerk.

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

Heh. I first encountered this story on NPR (it was involved in one of the questions on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me). Shortly after hearing it I stopped at the supermarket and…
No, I didn’t happen to have a rage-inducing encounter with one of the self-checkouts there that day, but it sure did put me in mind of some past infuriations.

[LurkMeister]

Well, I almost had one of these at a supermarket once. When I go to the store I bring along a large canvas bag to carry my groceries home on the bus. Every so often I use the self-checkout, which occasionally has a problem with me putting my bag on the “post scanning” area so I can place my purchases directly into it. Apparently the weight of the bag makes it think I’m trying to bag something without scanning it. Usually it eventually stops asking me to please take the item from my (empty) bag and scan it, but once this took several minutes of removing and replacing the bag. I guess the scale was extra sensitive that day.