Unexpected item in the bagging area
Channel: Alfred Williams
Date: 2020-04-07

In this song, I appear as two separate characters. In the choruses, I'm me (very much the role for which I was born), and in the verses I'm playing a supermarket self service checkout machine. A song written in the more innocent times of a few months ago, when this was the major concern while going to the supermarket. 


Lyrics, in case they're insufficiently distinct, and you're bothered by that fact, are as follows:

Machine: What is this new and quite mysterious object,
Which for the life of me I can't identify
Is it an animal, or mineral, or a fungus, or a plant?
Can I work it out? Well, I can have a try.
It's not a bird or plane or Superman, 'cos it's down here on the ground.
It's not the Lost Ark of the Covenant, 'cos I don't think that's been found.
It's not a lesser spotted walrus, 'cos it hasn't got a spleen,
And it's not the time of year you'd see a nuclear submarine.

Me: No. It's a bag, you stupid electronic bastard.
It's a bag; this one I'd have thought you might have mastered.
It's in the bagging area, you told me to put it there. 
I'd tear my hair out in frustration if I had the hair to spare.
It's a bag. The very one I just told you I'd brought.
It's a bag. Why ask me if I've got one if it's all for naught?
I should reduce you to a heap of plastic waste and molten slag.
The unexpected item in your bagging area is a bag!

Machine: It's not an adult Bengal tiger, 'cos I don't think it's got stripes.
It's not a rudimentary time machine, or some such prototype.
An early Saxon square head brooch seems unlikely this far north.
It's not the head of John the Baptist, ice cream, or the Firth of Forth.

Me: No. It's a bag. I mean what else were you expecting 
But a bag? A herd of wildebeest, you crazed robotic cretin?
You're worse than Skynet, Hal, and Ultron, bent on omnicide.
A pox on you, and all the diodes down your left hand side. 
It's a bag, it's not a doorbell, or a hat that's lined in fur, 
It's a bag, it's not a weapon, though by now I wish it were,
I didn't bring a penguin or an Indonesian flag,
The unexpected item in your bagging area is a bag.

It's a bag! It's not a jelly, or the concept of regret.
It's a bag! It's not a disappointing week in Somerset.
It's not a horde of zombies, or a pint of double cream, 
And it's not a losing under 7s table tennis team. 
It's a bag, as I suspect you know full bloody well.
It's a bag; may all your circuits burn in electronic Hell.
I should take you to some lofty peak and fling you from a crag. 
The unexpected item in your bagging area is a bag.