At the risk of turning this into a blog largely about supermarket shopping, I can no longer keep quiet about one of the most stressful experiences of my week. I have already mentioned how I normally do the shopping each week (normally on a Monday - my day off), so yesterday I found myself cruising the aisles as usual. This bit of the supermarket shopping is fine. Quite enjoyable, even, My quibble is not with filling the shopping trolley. It's at the till.Now, I'm quite organised and efficient at this, I like to think. When loaded the conveyor belt, I put all the frozen things together, all the cold things together, all the dry things together. This, in my head, means that at the other end, I will be able to embark on a packing system that means that all the similar things are in the same bags. This, in turn, means that at home, unpacking it all will be a lot easier.
I do this every week. I think this every week. It goes hideously wrong every week.
Here's what actually happens when I get to the other end.
"Would you like any help packing?" says the kindly person on the till. Yes, of course I would. I'd love you to pack it all. Wouldn't anyone? Only people who enjoy packing bags would sanely answer in the negative to this kind offer. So what do I say?
"No, I'll be fine". Every week. Why? I think because to accept help would be to suggest that I'm a useless, helpless male who can't even pack bags in a supermarket. As one of the few men around the supermarket enviroment, I do often feel like I'm flying the flag.
So, she starts to scan the items through, and all begins well enough. I start to pack the bags pretty well. It'll be OK this week, I think to myself. Perhaps I've broken the curse. No. I never have.
What inevitably happens is that after a minute or two, it becomes abundantly clear that she is scanning the items quicker than I can pack them. A pile of increasing size is appearing just past the till. She's struggling to find enough space to put the newly scanned items. I start to panic. I'm losing control. I need to pack quicker. If I don't, she'll be waiting for me to finish packing and give her my card for forty-five minutes. A large queue will develop. People will hate me. They'll throw tomatoes at me. I'll be banned from the shop. I'll have to go twenty miles to do my shopping. By the time I get home, all the frozen stuff will have defrosted. I'll poison my family with it. I'll go to prison for manslaughter. Aarrggghhhhh!
I end up just chucking anything into a bag with anything, just to speed the process up. My carefully planned conveyor belt organisation goes out of the window. Bananas are thrown in with nappies. Chicken breasts with toilet rolls. It's a complete nightmare.
Of course, what happens in the end is that the cashier helps me when she's finished scanning. I pay and leave, and when I get home, it takes me about three minutes longer to unpack than it would should my system have worked.
Is it just me? Is it a man thing? Am I actually incapable of shopping. No-one else on the other tills seems to have this problem.
Shopping. It's bad for your health.
