I was at the checkout in the grocery store, juggling the multiple cards I need to slide and trying to rapidly click through the requests for donations, so I wasn’t paying much attention to the clerk.

I thought she asked me how the corn was and I told her it’s been pretty good this season.

She giggled and said she wanted to know what color the corn was.

“Um,” I said. “I think there’s a white, a bi-color and a yellow. But don’t worry it’s all the same price.”

At that point I should have kept silent, but I found the question odd.

“Why do you want to know?” I said.

“We’re supposed to keep track of how much of each color is sold,” she said.

“How would you know the color?” I asked.

“There’s signs in the produce section,” she said.

“No, I mean, how would you be expected to know just by looking at the ear,” I said.

“I have to peel back the silk,” she said.

“That seems a little excessive,” I said.

“How else can they track what is sold?” she said.

She got me with that one. I suppose they could track sales the way they’ve always tracked sales by counting how many are stocked and then counting how many remain at the end of the day. I didn’t bring this up because this conversion had already exceeded my recommended daily allowance of random chit-chat.

What the old-school system does not allow for is tracking my personal corn color preference. This is just another piece of information the grocery store is collecting on me in preparation for … I’m not sure, but it scares me none the less.