Saturday, 28 September 2013

The Larder’s Full and the Freezer’s Heaving.


Yep, that’s another 2 hours I will never get back!

It definitely seems to me that the question of joy from ‘doing the groceries’ is about as polarising as red versus white wine, or shaving versus waxing. You either love or you hate it. I don’t think there is much middle ground.

Sociologists wishing to see the best and worst of the human condition could do worse than sit and watch the procession of folk at any supermarket on a Saturday morning. There is an excellent cross section of people, old, young, women, men, able, disabled, polite, rude, and really really bloody badly mannered sons of bitches.

I usually have a little chat to myself as I wait in line to grab a trolley. ‘Now you know that there will be hideous people in here today, so smile and see if you can maintain some decorum at least until you get to the check-out. You are not in a rush so don’t use that baguette to hit that fucker who just pushed in. Smile and say thank you instead. Try not to use the canned goods as shot-puts to really give that kid something to whinge about, and fight the urge to explain to the young carer that the old fella in the wheel chair might not be able to walk but that doesn’t mean he is a complete fucking idiot – he can choose his own food without a running commentary about then heart safeness of it from YOU!’ Ah there’s my trolley, wonky wheel and all.

The Give Way road rules are as foreign as nutritional goodness in a KFC burger. Trolleys are banked up especially at the aisle ends which are stupidly, overflowing with whatever shit is ‘on-sale’ this week. Making your way without moving like a lemming up and down every aisle, is definitely taking your life in your hands. People growl, and wheels are run into ankles, hips are smacked with swinging baskets and Oh shit, there goes the stack of cereal boxes.

I like to go the drinks aisle first, and then to the canned goods. I have a very neat and tidy trolley load, all the heavy stuff on the bottom, neatly arranged, and then I buy some meat and then finally I get some fruit and veg cos it gets squashed if it is not on the top.

Waiting in the line to part with large amounts of wonga is a great time to catch up on the celebrity gossip. Yes I am one of THOSE. I have a quick flick through the mags at the counter. Well why else would they put them there. Surely it is to relieve the irritation of waiting for some 11 year old  to toss  your eggs on top of the loo cleaner and the canned stuff.

I carefully arrange everything on the conveyor belt, heavy things closest to the 11 yr old and the grapes and the eggs together at the other end. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. It’s just a crap shoot really as to what goes into what bag. Rushing through and going like a maniac to re-arrange the stuff in the bags is usual and so my growling begins. It beggars belief that on spending a few hundred dollars it is necessary to oversee all this like a forensic accountant going through the mafia’s books. Why is it not possible to employ people with a brain. Is being clueless a prerequisite to being a check out chick. Did that grub really just sneeze snot into his hand and then pick up my bananas....SHIT SHIT SHIT, it really is time to be going NOW, before I lose all sense of humanity and strangle the closest shithead with my mile long docket.

No prizes for guessing on which end of the ‘joy’ spectrum I sit.

 

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