Five deadly sins of the supermarket

Or my failings at the weekly shop.

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After some rough calculations, I’ve concluded that I spend more time at the supermarket each year than I do socialising. And I do mostly love the bright lights of the big supermarket and have spent over forty years fantasising about doing a trolley dash. But all these hours have not just resulted in food. I’ve compiled the five biggest stabs of pain which these shops bring.

1. When they move things around

I’m very rigid in my supermarket route. I do what I call the methodical snake. Up one aisle, down the next and starting from the fruit and veg. Never never ever would I start at the far end. I’m not sure what contrarian, maverick outlier could. Maybe Gandhi but I’m also not sure how much he was going to Sainsbury’s.

This is just how it has to be, even though starting with the fruit and veg means it ends up bruised at the bottom of the trolley. I looked up why it’s always first and apparently, it’s because seeing brightly coloured, healthy foods puts you in a good mood and hungrier which leads to more spending.

And now I just think, I’m not your puppet. I am going to start at the other end with the alcohol and frozen food and let my frozen food defrost as I walk around. I’ll do the reverse methodical snake! But of course, I won’t.

This is far from the only way we’re being manipulated. Sometimes they’ll move everything around to mess with our heads. I vaguely remember from Psychology A-level that this makes you see more produce while you’re furiously searching for your usual stuff and you end up spending more money. So as a protest, whenever they move things, I put a few things back on the shelves so I’m spending less. As that really shows this multi-million-pound company.

2. When the bananas are wet

Potassium! Fibre! Tryptophan! Bananas are amazing. Apart from when I go to pick up a bunch and they’re wet. They are wet a lot of the time and it both maddens and confuses me. Nothing else is wet in the supermarket. Are they watering them? Is it to water off tarantulas because you hear a lot less about them being found in bunches of bananas?

Somebody told me it’s because bananas sweat. But I’m not sure if that wetness is perspiration or if the staff are showering them to prevent B.O.. Either way, this is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard and I’ll be writing to Right Guard about developing a banana antiperspirant.

3. The checkout

I used to get very stressed trying to keep up with the checkout operator. Until somebody suggested putting at regular intervals items which need to be weighed as that gives you a chance to catch up. Just a few loose courgettes or apples every now and then. It really does make a difference. Because if my shopping did start piling up, I would just have to speed up so much that I didn’t care if I was smashing eggs and glass, just as long as I didn’t look slow and amateur to the person behind me.

However, as I’m under 60, I don’t use this kind of checkout anymore. I use the supermarket app to scan the food and put it directly into my bags in my trolley. Or even better, directly into my rucksack so that those not in the know think I’m a very brazen shoplifter. I also really enjoy feeling superior to everyone else not using the app. Like I’m some kind of crazy genius using dark technology that no one else knows about.

The app also means I can go straight to the self-service checkout, scan my phone, pay and go. And obviously, I love a self-service checkout. It’s just nice having a go at someone else’s job. Like if you walked past a bricklayer and they asked if you wanted a go - who’d say no?

I also enjoy those screens just above which document in video form your checking out journey but at a weird angle. I feel like I’m the star of my own CCTV show. And it’s the closest I get to being on TV these days.

They really put a lot of trust in you with this app. Which is great I get three bottles of wine and one pack of Bendicks Bittermints for free each week. Not really! And this brings me to the downside. Every now and then (I’ve yet to establish any kind of pattern apart from it always happens when I’m in a massive rush) you get your shopping checked. And these are undoubtedly the most nerve-wracking moments of my life. Because what if I didn’t scan something properly? Will they believe me? I feel guilty and then start panicking I look guilty. It’s awful and I end up drenched in sweat more than a banana.

4. My companions

I cannot go to the supermarket with my partner anymore. As one of us will wander off and then the challenge of finding each other again is akin to getting out of the Villa Pisani labyrinth. And yet it shouldn’t be. Supermarkets haven’t been designed like mazes. They are in straight lines. But try finding someone again when they’ve just gone to get some capers. It’s impossible.

There is one person that I like to go with though. My son. Which leads me to number five.

5. Parent and child parking spaces

Some people talk about the magic of parenting being happy faces on Christmas day, the first words and steps, the podgy thighs, the cuddles and kisses, and watching them learn and grow. For me, it’s the parent and child parking space.

They are so huge even I can’t mess up the parking. As I find it very challenging getting into a normal space and often end up so close to one car that I’d have to have my ribs removed in order to slide out. They’re probably designed to make getting children in and out easier but for bad parkers like me, they are wonderful.

But heaven help the person who uses one of these without a child. As you will have a painful death wished on you by furious parents. I don’t think anything makes a parent of a child under 12 angrier. Occasionally you’ll see a story in the paper about someone leaving a note on the windscreen of the parking criminal, calling out their atrocity. Which just impresses me that anyone has a pen and paper in their car. But of course nobody ever actually says anything.

And I’ve never said anything. To them. But sometimes I’ll say loudly to my son, “Oh look, no child, he shouldn’t be parking there. I hate it when people do that.”

Once I got a bit carried away when a lady without children took the last space right in front of me. I knew she had no children as she was ahead of me and I’d witnessed her moments before trying and failing to park in a normal space. I’d go as far as to say she was a worse parker than me and there is no greater insult.

Finally, she gave up and pulled away leaving me free to get to the parent and child space I’d had my eye on. But bad parking lady also headed in this direction. And I was thinking, “Oh no you don’t. I know you are a bad parker but I also absolutely know there is no child with you or you would’ve come straight here. You are not taking that last space.”

And then I watched as she glided into that last parent child space.

I was rage-filled. I stopped my car, got out and went towards hers. I went right up to the backseat windows and peered in, very pointedly looking for a child that I knew was not there. I was right up against that window. She was completely on her own. I then got back in my car. And waited. And she pulled out and drove off.

I’d got my space. But I also think this means that I’m now a woman of a certain age with a dramatic decrease in regard for social norms and will have to take up Zumba, wear glasses with a lot of personality and start at the alcohol end of the shop. And campaign for using these spaces without a child to be a law punishable by the death penalty.

And when supermarkets start enforcing this, I will forgive all the other sins.