Putting a price on it

[Prices used to be written on by hand.]

How much did I pay for that tin of pineapple in the cupboard? I don't know. I'd have to hunt through a pile of old dockets or something to find out. Not so in the long lost old days.

Many years ago I filled in occasionally as a check-out chick (when I was more of a chick than an old boiler) at my local supermarket - a small family owned business - so that the family could go to the footy. It was fun serving customers as they came through the checkout and wondering what they were cooking for tea with that lot or why they were buying luxury items etc etc.
When things were quiet, one job was to mark new items with the price. It was a modern shop so we had a price gun with labels. Every item in the store had a price except for when they didn't!
At the checkout there was not scanner. The price of each item had to be keyed in. Heaven help you if the finger slipped and you ended up with a total in the hundreds or thousand of dollars.
It was quite a dilemma if the item had no price. There was a huge catalogue of items printed out on large computer generated sheets (the old tractor feed type printouts) As customers queued up I'd search for the item. Eventually I gave up and simply keyed in a figure I thought was fair. Apologies to the owners and to the customers but it seemed to work. Now of course, we have bar codes and scanners. Somehow it takes the fun out of it all.

[Spot the Eudunda's price tag on this packet.]