I’ve got a week off work this week, to relax and de-stress a bit, although I haven’t done as much relaxing as I would like – mainly because Jack is poorly sick again. Without wanting to go into TMI, he’s got bad diarrhoea and his rear end (legs/hips) is causing him pain. He’s having X-rays at the vet tomorrow, under sedation.
Anyway, the cupboards were bare and I didn’t have a chance to go the supermarket through fear of coming home to Shit City. Today however the grocery situation was desperate and the Boy seemed to be able to contain himself so off I trotted to the shops (leaving the back door open – and the gate padlocked – for any emergency evacuations that may be required). I thought I’d go early, to avoid the crowds, so I left the house at 9 a.m.
I should have known that the day was destined for disaster when the traffic was held up by the garbage truck crawling along at somewhere less than 5 m.p.h. The traffic also seemed unusally heavy; certainly heavier than I expected for that time of day (assuming most people start work by 9.00). I carried on regardless and enjoyed a relaxing breakfast of a cappuccino and a smoked sandwich at my friendly neighbourhood Starbucks. I must have had some kind of sixth sense as I had an extra shot in my cappuccino.
After a quick mooch around the clothes and shoe stores (miraculously refraining from purchasing), I entered Tesco ‘Extra’. I think the ‘Extra’ refers to the amount of extra blood pressure one often gets when trying to shop there.
Not wishing to bore you too much, I’ll summarise the events that led to me nearly wrapping my trolley around someone’s head:
- The trolley itself. Why do I always pick the ones that you can only push if you walk like a crab, pushing the trolley at a 45 degree angle in front of you? And why must they be so deep? Being a mere midget the number of times I’ve almost fallen headfirst, legs in the air into the trolley trying to get the last few items out at the checkout.
- The staff. Now, I appreciate that their job is to ensure the shelves are always full; hell, I used to do that job myself. But why must they abandon their cage of goods in the middle of an aisle?
- Old people. No matter what time I shop, it seems to be OAP day out. I wouldn’t mind so much, but they’re so *dithery*. Most people walk up to the bags of potatoes, pick one up, place in trolley and off they go. Old people meander slowly up to the display (usually 3 abreast – husband, wife and trolley) and place trolley in front of item before standing either side of it (thus effectively blocking the item from anyone else’s grasp). Then they have a 20 minute fricking conversation about which potatoes to buy, what they can ‘put them with’, whether they need a 5kg bag (‘But they’re awfully heavy, George, will you be able to manage?’) or a 2.5kg (‘That’s enough for Monday, wednesday and Friday but if Muriel comes over we won’t have enough for Sunday’). meanwhile I am hopping from foot to foot trying to spot an opportunity to grab and go. Then, THEN!, they have the cheek to a) tut at me (‘Youth of today!’) and 2) block my trolley with theirs so I’m stuck while 25 other shoppers sail through the small gap between the old people and teh shelf-stacker’s cage.
- I’ll phrase this next one carefully. People who are not, perhaps, as refined as the people I associate with. People who think that it’s OK to feed their kids crisps and chocolate all day because they also give them an apple every day. People who wear a uniform of designer-style tracksuits made of cheap shiny material. Unfortunately, many of these people also don’t have the social grace to apologise when they run over your toes with their trolley, or when their kid throws something at you.
- People who stand in the middle of the aisle, talking to someone they met, blocking the aisle completely with both trolleys.
- The thing I want being on the highest shelf, set back a little, and everyone watches me struggle to try to get it down and not one tall person offers to help.
- The one thing you need most being sold out.
- Getting to the end of the shop and realising that you’ve forgotten something, which is located at the other end of the shop, by the entrance, requiring you to negotiate all the obstacles again.
- Checkout operators who throw the food down the belt quicker than you can pack it, and ask for the payment while you’re still trying to frantically get everything in bags.
- Carrier bags that refuse to open. Or split.
- And then, you have to load all the stuff in the car, and then unload it and put it away in the house. Grr. This is why online shopping was invented.
Oh – and they still don’t have plain Green and Blacks apart from the version specially made for cooking (melts easier apparently). On asking why, I was told that ‘it didn’t sell enough’, but they might start restocking it at some point in the future.
On the plus side – I managed to buy the butt-plug shaped bottle stopper
We’re nasty bad people for putting him through it.
