Last night at Kohl's a customer was signing the PIN pad to complete his transaction. You know the type: middle aged, average height, face with wrinkles that can't be interpreted as either laugh or frown lines, hair that's not any particular color but isn't exactly gray, eyes the same color as his hair, clothes no one would ever notice or remark on, normal sized feet even ... all in all, someone who looks like he's spent his whole life following the crowd -- no, wait, scratch that -- following the example of the average of all Upstate New York middle class middle age middle income businessmen. Anyway. He suddenly hesitated in the middle of signing his name, as if something had suddenly occurred to him and he couldn't remember if it was a memory of something that had once happened or a reminder or something he was supposed to do. Then he looked at me for the first time in the last 10 minutes he had been at the counter and inquired, "How often do they clean these things?" Surprised, I answered that I had no idea. He gave the PIN pad an almost-frown (his face actually remained more or less expressionless, but I imagined that he was probably giving it a sort of mental frown at least) and then asserted in an authoritative tone "They ought to be cleaned on a regular basis, what with everything that's been going on lately." I was so confused as to why anyone would actually say that, that I didn't even laugh about it until after he'd left (thankfully).

People are ridiculous. Another POS associate told me about some lady who came through her line with a packet of hand wipes and wiped down the counter before she put her clothes on it and the PIN pad before she signed. I really don't get why they are so worried about the swine flu and all, it's just another version of the flu, no reason for mass hysteria. And if they're going to get it, the chances are pretty slim that it's going to be from the PIN pad at Kohl's. We need a serious reality check people ....