Each one’s the same. Thin pieces of paper with black ink perfectly printed on the same line every time. There are a few ads on them, nothing special, just the Maryland Lottery. Each and every one is the same, save the item and price of a few different items. Medium Soft Drink: $2.00. Big Mac Meal: $5.20. These are the most commonly ordered items.
Are receipts a good metaphor for life? Are we as human beings just exact copies of each other, except for a few things on our outer layer? We have the same ideals, same goals, same fears, and the same stimuli. And, yes, there are a few bad eggs here and there. But of course, there is always a messed up receipt somewhere in the mix. The ink is smeared across the paper or the paper rips down the middle as it leaves the machine, just another imperfection, they slip out every once and a while. The machine repeats everything exactly how the data was put in. Could we be plotted on a graph, just like data collected from an experiment? Are we just one pixel in a world of trillions upon trillions of pixels, all making up the big picture? I say why not?

It’s strange how an idea such as this pops up while sipping a two-dollar Diet Coke in the corner of a run down McDonald’s in Reisterstown. Just watching the young woman at the counter take orders, tap a few things on the touch screen and print those never-changing receipts makes me think about our place in an ever-changing world such as ours. What makes President Barack Obama and me so different? In the 50’s and 60’s, it would have been our skin color, but now it would be by our intelligences, just plotted data on a graph.

Another idea also hit me today, and it ties in pretty well. Do people view each other as being parts of a certain group? It seems that way. We judge each other, and then class each other as one thing or another. Well it all boils down to two people meeting and their facial expressions.
A rushed older woman hobbled into the McDonald’s, looking frantically about as she pushed her way through the double doors. She scurried up to the counter as I kept a distance. She spat out a few quick words, some slightly incoherent, much to the dismay of the cashier. After a few seconds of thought and a look of disgust, the cashier realized what the woman said and tapped her high tech board. Right at that look of disgust, the cashier grouped the frazzled woman. Just like what you and I do every day when we meet a new person. We don’t even think about it. It just “happens.”