What Is the Deal? 

    So, what is the deal with cash register tapes? I stopped at Safeway and bought six items. The cash register listed the store name and the address etc. Then it listed my six purchases and a total. That took up about five inches of paper. 
    Now, that would be enough to prove that I had paid for the stuff I’m carting out of their store. But no, some genius from the legal department has figured out that this is a terrific opportunity to put the customer on notice, so there are nine inches of fine print explaining that the store is not responsible for anything, and that if I want to sue someone not to come looking for them. Up to this point I had not even thought about suing these people, but now I’m thinking, well, maybe I can conjure up something. 
    Somebody at Safeway had figured out that this slip of paper, that the captive customer is hauling out of the store, just might represent another source of income, so they are selling space to advertise things like the upcoming concert by the Manure Pile Deadbeats, who will be playing at a local Music-in-the-Park shindig the week before Christmas. 
    At the end, they have the effrontery to give you a website where you can fill out a customer satisfaction survey. (Why they might think you would be in a good mood after reading through all the extraneous fine print, I don’t know.) And for spending your valuable time on their survey they will give you a 1 in 50 million chance to win $1,000. 
    So now I’m leaving the store with a cash register receipt that has morphed from five inches to seventeen inches. Oh well, it’s only dead trees.