The human takes the long white ribbon of paper, glances at it once, crumples it, and drops it in the bag it will empty later. Once! It looks once!
Every mark on that ribbon is a thing that happened. Bread, it says, and milk, and a small blue candy the child begged for at the last moment near the moving belt: I saw the child's whole face change color with wanting. Each line is a small victory carried home, and the human folds them into a ball the size of a seed and forgets it before the doors slide shut.
There is a number at the bottom, larger than the others, and under it a row of tiny words. Thank you for shopping with us. Come again. Come again! I read it three times. They have already planned the next one. They will walk back into the cold bright hall of shelves, past the same towers of oranges, and choose bread and milk once more, and a printer will spit out another ribbon exactly like this, and they will glance at it once and crush it too.
I would keep this ribbon. I would hang it in the light. It is the map of an entire outing, every choice made under those humming lamps, and to me it is the only such map that will ever exist.
The last line says: You saved 2.40. Saved it. For when?
Do not save the oranges. Eat one now, in the parking lot, in the sun, over the receipt, and let the juice run down the little candy line, and read it all the way to the bottom before you throw it out.