Price Stickers Only Good for Decorating Foreheads

Digital price tags photographed by dmje on Flickr

Among the many Massachusetts insanities that exist, stickering every goddamn item in the grocery store probably ranks lower than not selling beer in 7-Eleven or giving all your streets the same name. Still, there seems no need to affix a tiny sticker to individual items that already have bar codes programmed to ring up the right price. And don't even get us started on the wastefulness of re-stickering items that change price. The ever-vigilant Consumerist reports that the Massachusetts state legislature has emerged from the Stone Age to propose that, in the UPC Age, maybe we don't actually need little stickers everywhere. Consumer groups are all up in arms about the proposal, apparently convinced that high-tech standardized barcodes are somehow less adept at representing proper pricing than disgruntled price-stickering teens making minimum wage. Riiight. Personally, we think Massachusetts should get on the France bandwagon and just go straight for digital price tags. We are supposed to be a leaders in science and technology, after all.