The Industrial Revolution set cash registers ka-chinging all over the world, as never before. Ka-ching! Ka-ching! A sweet sound, beloved by merchants everywhere. Until the electronic age.

Suddenly, silence prevailed. All the cash registers went about their important work, ka-ching-free. Merchants mourned. Evenings, they would sit together, counting their money. Oh, they were happy enough with the numbers. More than happy, even. Sales increased and increased. But something was missing.

"The money smells delicious," they would say to each other, "but something is missing."

"Oh, yes," they would reply. "How I long for the days when I could hear the money coming in. It was just so much more, I don’t know ---- satisfying."

One day, an Innovator from Silicon Valley happened to overhear such an exchange. Compassion welled up in his bosom. Compassion for the tragic plight of merchants all over the world. Clearly, some focused Innovating was in order. By the end of the day, this brave and big-hearted soul had the solution, and 26,262,841 orders for immediate installation.

The merchants were beside themselves with joy. Now, in place of their former lamentations, they speak to each other like this:

"Oh, how I love it!" they say. "No matter where I am, I can hear every single sale!"

"Yes, yes," they reply. "Ka-ching was never like this. This is like ---- like ---- like a huge tweety-bird, personally announcing to me every single sale. Now, that is my idea of heaven."

"Exactly," they re-reply," every bar of soap, every tube of Chapstick, every roll of Lifesavors, every, every, everything! From any point in the store. Oh, yes! Yes!! Yes!!!

They dance. They sing. They mourn no longer. And the Innovator loves to see it. A beautiful thing, this. People helping people.

And what of the customers? Are their hearts in the right place? Do they understand and embrace the deep beauty of their new shopping experience? Is there anything they will not accept? Will they balk now? Will they duck, raising their arms to shield their eyes, instinctively terrified to find themselves in a huge aviary gone rabid? Will they run screaming, unable to understand that it is just noise? Will they leave their children at home now, when they enter the domain of the merchants, so that the merchants will have to go from door to door with the candy bars and potato chips and Disney Adventure magazines and little packages of cookies and all the other little things that the children formerly would have tossed into the checkstand-mix while their parents were busy handling the money end of things? Will the merchants be torn between mourning over the millions of dollars in lost sales, and rejoicing over the sharp drop in insurance rates, because no children will be hurt anymore when they race with the shopping carts?

No. It’s all right. Customers and checkers take it all in stride. Voices raise automatically, to be heard above the din. Half the population is deaf, having stuffed its ears with low-tech shields. Some people don’t like it! But it’s all good. The Innovator is listening. Soon, there will be high-tech earplugs. They will be expensive, but the Innovator will not mind. Anything to be of service. Ka-ching!