I am not sure they still do but back in the day at least some Brazilian text books used to have the national anthem on the back, thats how I learned the words.

Just barely, groceries are absurdly expensive right now. I am at a high cost of living region (NE USA), but seems bad everywhere. I started getting produce from a CSA from a local farm, turned out to be a good value so far.

Good call on the cashier convo. It’s basically automatically at this point, in a good way.

I also had some bad experiences with the self checkout. I rather spend a bit more time going through the cashier line then the self checkout if I can get a better experience. I do find the self checkout at hardware stores with those scan guns to work well most of the time.