Kafka and the Self-Service Checkout Kiosk - a bit of fun

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Kafka and the Self-Service Checkout Kiosk

                                                                 Thanks to Rowan Pelling

                                    Those who have never suffered through Kafka

Should not employ the adjective “Kafkaesque”

The landgraf would not approve

 

When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning

from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed

in his bed into a monstrous self-service checkout kiosk.

 

Someone must have traduced Joseph K.,

for without doing anything wrong

he was arrested in the checkout line

one fine morning

 

It was late in the evening when

the supermarket supervisor arrived.

 

 

Kafka, The Metamorphosis. Trans. Stanley Corngold. New York: Norton. 1972

 

Kafka, The Trial. Trans. Willa and Edwin Muir. New York: The Modern Library. 1956

 

Kafka, The Castle. Trans. Willa and Edwin Muir. New York: Schocken. 1982

 

The hell of self-service checkouts is becoming Kafkaesque (yahoo.com)