On your marks – go!

Over the weekend I undertook a shopping expedition to a well-known supermarket not a million miles away from where I live. I’m not naturally a fan of shopping but – when it comes to food – I’ve gradually been trained over the years to become reasonably efficient at it.

The only complication comes when from time to time, in line with well-known retail trade theory, the supermarkets deliberately switch the way and set manner in which they stock their aisles and shelves to try and make the punters visit parts of their stores they don’t normally frequent in the hope they then buy something novel. This catches me out every time because – whatever it is I am trying to collect in my trolley – I always operate on auto-pilot and, if when I get to aisle 8 (where for example the jams are traditionally housed), I discover that it is now instead chock-filled with dairy products and yoghurts … and/or that the jams have been moved to aisle 14 … it completely ‘throws’ me.

Coming fast behind my conviction that there are just too many people and motor vehicles in this world – and particularly in Britain, or at least the parts of it I visit (an opinion incidentally which is also held by everyone I meet socially these days) – is my realisation that at weekends there are just too many people out shopping when I am.

Take last weekend. The vast car park at the supermarket I visited was almost full of cars as I arrived.

I almost had to wait for a member of staff to arrive with a new ‘train’ of shopping trolleys because there were none left at the trolley-park outside the entrance.

Once inside the store, apart from evading a lady who was finishing a cigarette outside the entrance door by sending plumes of smoke into the air and almost causing me to have to gulp for fresh air to stay alive, I then had to evade a lady attended by a small child who were sorting something out in their trolley and a superannuated old biddy who had stopped dead for no apparent reason, presumably confused as to where she was and why she was there.

Not a promising start.

It got worse. Because I approach shopping as if it is an Olympic sport in which the gold medallist will be the shopper who first completes his or her circumnavigation of the store, speeds through the checkout to the exit, loads his or her car and then hits the open road in time for a mid-morning cup of steaming Bovril as soon as they get home, I am totally focused and determined.

First to the fruit, vegetables and salad section. Then to the fish and meat aisles. Then to the dairy and cheese, cooked meats, ready meals sections. Thence to cooking oils, pickles, sardines, soups. Thence … well, you get the picture. I reckon that, with a totally clear run, I can be in – out – loaded and away within 20 minutes. And would always want to be.

At the weekend my expedition was very different.

First into ‘fruit’ – where there were no fewer than five different trolleys apparently deliberately placed as obstacles designed to bugger up my swift and smooth progress.

Plus – as all too often occurs – one thirty-something lady standing right in front of the ‘fruit salads’ shelf with one of the large trolleys, (as far as I could tell) suffering from either a hangover, a mental condition, or possibly a stroke, unable to make a bloody decision on which fruit salad she wanted. I meanwhile wanted a small one comprising of apple slices, black grapes and pineapple chunks. But couldn’t reach one because said lady was (possibly deliberately) blocking me. I was losing vital time on my attempt at a new world record time. How frustrating was that?

I shall not bother you with the tedious details, but thus my entire shop went on.

At every turn I was frustrated by people ambling around as if in slow motion, unable to make up their minds, or listening to music on – or even talking upon – their iPhones, or just in a world of their own.

Then – another thing calculated to irritate – I had two items on my ‘to get’ list that I either hadn’t heard of before and/or hadn’t a clue in which aisle they’d be housed. They caused me at least a ten-minute delay in total.

Worst of all, and I take no pleasure in this, the fundamental fact of the matter was that without a doubt the worst offenders in the ‘slow-coach’ stakes were the elderly. By which I mean those of my age or older.

They dither, they don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing. When they reach the check-outs they want to pass the time of day talking to the check-out assistant, telling them their life story and what their cat had for breakfast, cheerily ‘laughing at their own absent-mindedness’ as they always pack everything into bags and onto their trolley before they even begin going for their wallets or purses (which in itself causes those of us behind in their queue to blow our cheeks out in frustration and huff and puff). And only then do they spend two minutes minimum searching, not for their cash or credit card, but for the ‘discount’ vouchers which will knock 7p each off their total spend when the time comes to pay.

Then, when they’ve found all eleven of these, the check-out girl checks them and finds that at least four are ‘out of date’ … so that takes more time. Only then does the oldie go for their credit card – and then (as often as not) gets their PIN number wrong the first time.

It’s enough to drive anyone like me, who is competing in the Olympics speed-shopping event, nuts.

It gives me no pleasure at all to criticise the world’s senior citizens, especially since I am so close to being one, but really!

It causes one to reach the inescapable conclusion that there ought to be a law requiring annual tests carried out upon every oldie whereby, if they cannot get round a supermarket and back home within a time of one hour maximum after three attempts, they have to be euthanised (as humanely as possible, of course) upon their very next birthday.

That should spice weekend shopping trips up a bit for the rest of us …