I’m the first to admit I’m not a natural shopper.
When I have to go and buy clothes it’s a matter of diving
into a shop, seeing what I quite like, buy it and out. I can buy a complete
wardrobe of clothes in under an hour and they’ll last me a couple of years.
Decades ago I was coerced into going clothes shopping with
my then girlfriend. We arrived at the shopping centre bang on 09:00, just as
the shops opened. Just before 17:30 she finally bought the only item of the
day, an outfit she had seen in the very first shop some eight hours earlier.
Needless to say she was very soon an ex-girlfriend and that
was eight wasted hours of my life I would never get back.
Nowadays I tend to confine my shopping forays to food
shopping, even that is fraught with annoyances.
First of all there is the parking. Why does everyone park as
near as possible to the entrance of the shop? Why are people so lazy?
I always park in the furthest part of the car park. Finding a
space is generally easier and a little bit of exercise hurt nobody.
Now I fully understand supermarkets having disabled parking
spaces near the entrance to the store, although nothing makes my blood boil
more than when people abuse disabled parking spaces – in the unlikely event I
was standing as a politician I would invoke a law which confiscated the car of
anyone who misused a disabled parking space.
What I don’t understand is “parent and child” parking spaces.
Are children nowadays born without functioning limbs? Are they incapable of
walking more than a few yards? Why should people have priority parking because
they choose to breed?
When I was a youngster my parents never had a car, it was a
good mile to the nearest shops and we were either pushed there in our pram /
pushchair or once we were able to walk we walked.
It was the same with going to school – even at infant school
it was a walk of just under a mile each way – there was no such thing as a school
run. No impatient parents getting as close to the school gates as possible,
ignoring the rules of the road and blocking other motorists just to save their
precious mite having to walk a few extra paces.
No wonder we have an obesity crisis in our society.
Ideally I prefer to do my food shopping at independent
stores but where I live, in the soulless metropolis that is Milton Keynes, such
independent stores are few and far between so supermarket shopping is the only
practical alternative.
My supermarket of choice is the well known “upmarket” one –
not for any snob value, although they do stock some more exotic items not found
elsewhere.
The big advantage for me is you can self-scan your shopping
as you go around the store. This means you can watch your bill steadily rise as
you shop and, yes, it can be very disconcerting when you’re only half way down
the third aisle and the total passes the £30 mark.
For me, however, the biggest advantage of self-scan is you don’t
have to engage in meaningless inane conversations with checkout operators. I
don’t want false bonhomie when I go shopping, I just want to buy, pay and go
without engaging in unnecessary social intercourse.
I know most other supermarkets have self-checkouts but they
are not the same as scan as you go. You have to scan and pack all in one go and
you have to face the perils of the scales. You can guarantee something will be
the wrong weight or will be too light to register. You then have to hang around
for some rushed worker to come and reset the till – thus undermining the whole “quickness”
of the exercise.
The worse offender for this is Morrisons. You only have to
sneeze or even move the carrier bag more than a millimetre for the scales to
throw a wobbly. On a recent visit after seven of the eight items I attempted to
purchase failed to register properly, the person supervising the checkout then
wondered why I just walked out and left my shopping there.
Occasionally I do have to visit the other supermarkets as
there are some items I need which my preferred store does not stock. These trips
usually end up with me being in a bad mood by the end.
Take my visit to the leading supermarket chain yesterday.
Being home during the day I tend to food shop at the quietest time of the day
and around 10:00 is a good time midweek.
Indeed yesterday there were very few customers in the shop,
yet the experience was a nightmare.
Why?
Well the aisles were full of the store’s employees doing
shopping for those who cannot be arsed to get off they backsides to do their
own shopping.
Why can’t supermarkets fulfil these online orders from the
warehouse or an area hub? Why do these orders need to be fulfilled on the main
shop floor?
It’s not as if the staff use ordinary trollies either, they
use big cumbersome monstrosities? Presumably so they can shop for several
customers at once.
Yesterday I was standing slightly back from the shelf comparing
at various items, when one of these company shoppers just parked their wagon
right in front of me obstructing my view and any access to the items. Then they
had the temerity to give me a dirty look when I made a comment.
Talking of supermarket trollies, the one thing that really
makes my blood boil, more than anything else, is parents who allow their children
to stand in the trolley itself. That is so rude.
Who knows what crap (literally) the child has walked in yet
they are then allowed to walk around inside the trolley with impunity. The next
person using that trolley is going to put food in it. OK the food may be
wrapped but look at this scenario.
Child steps in dog excrement.
Child stands in trolley.
Some remains of said dog excrement transfers to trolley.
Next customer puts packed meat into said trolley.
Excrement transfers to food packaging.
Food then transferred to fridge.
Need I say any more?
If I owned a supermarket any parent who allowed their child
to stand in the trolley would be thrown out and banned. The trollies have child
seats for goodness sake. If the child is too big for the child seat it’s big
enough to walk.
It’s a wonder I don’t burst a blood vessel every time I go
food shopping.
