Grocery shopping today… dropped $270 and I’m pretty sure there was scant little ‘real’ food in the trolley. Mostly it was all just stocking up on holiday snackage. Now I hate grocery shopping at the best of times, but there’s a number of things that can make it worse…
Christmas Carols playing over the PA system. Urgh! From what I understand there’s been significant research done in the field of environmental psychology in retailing and the effect of certain musical stimuli on the customers. And I have a sneaking suspicion that Christmas Carols must have scored pretty high for them to be hammering them ad infinitum they way they do. I hate Christmas Carols. Hate them in the shopping centres, hate them in office elevators, hate them in fucking carols by candlelight bullshit…. they’re so hackneyed and played to death, please stop torturing us this way.
Supermarket brand hogging. I went looking for smoked oysters today to add to my cheese and nibblies plates for tomorrow, and was disgusted to find that the only brand available was John West. There used to be several brands of smoked oysters available at my local Coles supermarket… Brunswick Smoked Oysters and Always Fresh Smoked Oysters and a Coles Own Brand. But now, all we get is the option of John West or John West smoked oysters… which is fucked, cos they were always dearer and for a much smaller package.
People congregating in the aisles. I don’t know why, but either people enjoy shopping with a bunch of their friends and relatives or the supermarkets are the real world equivalent of fucking chat rooms where you can run into a pick up conversation and just decide to be a part of it, but it seems that you’re constantly trying to navigate your predictably dodgy trolley through small knots of people. What the fuck are they talking about anyway? Deep and meaningfuls about cheese or something?
Strangers feeling compelled to talk to you. ‘Excuse me dear, but are these the spinach and ricotta triangles that are on special?” Well lady, I don’t know do they match the description on the little tag telling you they’re on special? As if I give a fuck.. oh wait ricotta and spinach huh? Hmmm they sound good.. I might have some of those.
Everything’s been moved… Again. Yes, they have to move everything around for the Christmas nonsense. Not sure why they do this as it seems they have some irregular stuff going on all year round… New Years party goods, Valentines day Chocolates etc, Easter Egg stuff, Mothers day Stuff, and so on and so on. Why don’t they just have one aisle dedicated to whatever the hell people are being conned into this week, and leave everything else out of it? Why do they have to shuffle every product in the entire store when they bring in the product lines that are dedicated to what ever is being celebrated at that point in time? I hate not being able to find stuff 🙁
Check out Boys. Never! Never! And I can’t stress this enough… NEVER line up behind a check out that has a boy working the register. For if you do, I guarantee you will regret it. Your dishwashing detergent will be in the same bag as your bananas, your eggs will be packed under tins of dog food, and your tampons will be thrown in with your cheese. For reasons beyond my limited understanding, boys can’t pack groceries for shit! Even though I fastidiously separate all my cold things into one section on the conveyor belt, and then the hard items and then the fresh items etc… if there’s a boy working the checkout… forget it. I might as well let Angel pack the groceries.
So even if you manage to get a trolley that goes relatively straight, and there’s no Christmas carols playing, and a decided lack of strangers annoying you and the store manager was too lazy to move all your favorite products around that week… even under those optimal conditions, grocery shopping still sucks…. prices are up, quantities are down…. and you still find yourself checking the fucking eggs which is a depressing reminder of just how mundane our lives are.
Merry Christmas all… can’t wait for it to be over.
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