Always struck me as a city thing, not a white people thing.

Maybe things have changed, but in the small town where I grew up, people generally wouldn't bother.

• there would usually be a gap delineating one persons items from the other's anyways

• the person who was professionally scanning our groceries 100% had the expertise to see the gap and comprehend its meaning

• If (I never ever saw it happen, ever) they had grabbed something, someone would have noticed, said "whoops, that's not mine". Nobody would think someone was trying a scam.

I feel like this is an amazing measure of someone's general level of anxiety. Or maybe a measure of how little credit they give the person scanning groceries? Both?