The plastic thing that goes between your stuff and the other peoples stuff

From Frikipedia

Sometime in the 1980s, retailers realized that stupider people buy more stuff. They invented the plastic thing that goes between your stuff and the other peoples stuff as a tool to expedite human devolution. The operating theory, was that persons of average intelligence would become unbearably frustrated by the fact that every time they went to the checkout, some gomer would utilize the device even though there was clearly 2' between their stuff and said gomer's stuff. The resulting stress would cause most persons of average intelligence to self select out of life. Friki has concluded that this was, and continues to be largely successful.