Bitching and backbiting, snatching, bad tempers, intimidation….no it’s not Twitter, it’s the Supermarket!
To get to my nearest store, which is just round the corner, I have to first get past the collection of trolleys blocking the pedestrian access whose wheels have locked because people have tried to take them out of the designated area.
Then it’s a case of nagivating my way around the groups of loud and sweary teenagers (don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind teenagers, I was one and will have two of my own before I know it). The car park is the current “place to be” it seems, why the county council can’t find the kids somewhere to go that they can call their own, is anyone’s guess.
Then it’s grab a trolley and battle through the first entrance where 101 people with shopping filled bags are waiting for their lifts / taxis and someone is collecting for something (again, no issue with charities but I always pay on my card and don’t have change so feel really tight!).
Into the store and I get a few brief seconds of quiet and calm before I hit the actual aisles. I have shopped at the same supermarket off and on for many years. I am yet to work out a pattern that will warn me when the stocking up will take place. It seems to be a different time every day. Well stocked shelves are great but when the already too-tight aisles are packed with dawdling shoppers AND huge metal cages with bags attached for rubbish it can make doing your actual shopping a feat of navigation to rival all other.
Then there is the abuse. I would not work in a supermarket, ever. The reason for this blank refusal to ever consider such a job stems from the fact that you need to have the patience of a saint. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard some poor staff worker, doing his/her job just fine but being severely berated because the price of this has gone up or something has moved. Real abuse folks, and it’s completely unnecessary.
Once I’ve got my shopping, have got around the obstacles, avoided the glare of the abusive shoppers and headed for the till, suddenly there are a million people, (who are clearly doing a monthly shop), in front of me in the queue for the three open tills. I believe this is commonly referred to as “Sods Law”.
On trying to leave the store, especially if in a hurry, I set the alarm off. When I say me, I mean one of the six people who tried squeezing out the doors as the same time as me who have by this point joined the 101 people in the entrance and the charity collector, and some of the teenagers (because it’s getting cold out) so that they can all turn and watch me, red faced, prove to the security guard that it was NOT ME that set the alarm off.
Thank goodness for online grocery shopping!
