A pizza box has six sides

two squares and four rather elongated rectangles. There's a statement of the three dimensional geometric obvious!

We ran out of dry cat food early in the evening and whilst Sonya was prepared to let the cats wait until the morrow I wasn't, so off I went to the supermarket. One bag of dry cat food and some Lindt Chocolate Truffles in hand I waited in line at the self checkout machines.

A mid-forties bloke was ahead of me. Maybe I'm wrong but at a glance he looked like a recent recruit to the ranks of the separated, struggling to cope with living alone for possibly the first time in a couple of decades. Maybe it was the four microwave pizzas and six pack of beer (and nothing else) that gave it away. I've been there myself once or twice but I learned at least the pretence of cooking in my teens.

So he proceeds to the checkout machine and struggles to identify himself to the machine. I wrote[^] about that a while ago. That hurdle over he swiped the beer, stood patiently while the overseer of the four machines glanced over, concluded he was over 21 and hit the 'bypass age check' button.

Incidentally I note that a cheeky young bastard at the very same supermarket last week insisted on seeing my drivers license when I was purchasing some wine. Nope, he swore he wasn't kidding! Those who've met me would have no doubt whatsoever that 21 was a long long time ago! Smartarse kid! :-)

But anyway, back to the bloke with the pizza. Beer swiped he swiped the first three pizzas. The fourth defeated him. You understand that they were four identical pizzas! He twirled that box around and around, inspected the square sides minutely in search of the barcode, checked three of the four elongated rectangles, went back to the squares, checked the same three elongated rectangles and checked the squares yet again. I could see the damn barcode from where I was standing!

I don't swear he scratched his head.

Then a brilliant idea! He put the pizza down and picked up one of the pizzas he'd already scanned, preparing to scan it a second time. Full points for honesty. Unfortunately, these machines also go by weight and it's a mistake to remove something you've scanned until that annoying voice (yes, these damn machines talk at you!) give you permission. Permission is, of course, only granted when you've paid! It might have worked if he'd done a quick shuffle, ensuring that three were still on the output side of the machine, but he didn't and the machine started complaining.

Poor bastard!