What Do You Call This Thing At The Grocery Store?

There is a large line at the grocery store and the person in front of you has just put their last item on the conveyor belt. Since there is a little space on the belt now, you decide it would be a good time to begin unloading the groceries from your cart.

After a moment of hesitation, you ask the clerk to pass you the.... what, exactly? Well, this thing:

This weekend while grocery shopping with my wife, I asked her to 'please pass the stick.' After a few moments of confusion, followed by me gesturing toward 'the stick,' she realized what I was talking about.

"Oh, are you talking about the divider," she asked. "Do you just call it a stick?"

Well, yes I have always just called it 'the stick,' sort of the U2's "The Edge," but a stick.

Officially, it is called a 'checkout divider,' which I have heard exactly zero people call it in my life.

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While we are on the subject, who is responsible for putting the stick checkout divider on the belt in the first place? Sometimes the person waiting to use the belt will put the divider up, apparently to speed up the process, but the first person might not be done grabbing impulse buys from the shelves by the register!

As it turns out, most cashiers are 'strongly' in favor of the stick checkout divider as it saves them both time and unnecessary confusion.