Monday 6 October 2008

Reasonable Rant

I don't rant very often. Not on my blog, at least. This is partly because I don't get very stressed about things, and partly because rants tend to be somewhat unreasonable, one-sided and hypocritical. Not always, of course. Obviously my rant will be reasonable and contain no hypocrisy whatsoever. Actually, I'm not sure it's violent enough to be a rant, but it's the best I can do, I'm afraid.

Last week I went to the supermarket during the day. I went quite early, because I imagined that this would be a good quiet time to go. I was wrong.


There were a number of old people there. I expected that. Most of them were there when I was out shopping at the weekend, and still hadn't got to the till yet. I'm sure I've remarked before about how odd it is that the very people who don't have much time left before they die are the ones who seem to do everything so slowly.

I'm not going to rant about old people, because I don't want someone showing me this post when I'm old and pointing out that I'm slow and doddery and indecisive and manage to block the whole aisle for an hour whilst deciding which brand of denture fixitive to buy.

No, I'm much more concerned about the number of SAHMs that there were ahead of me at the checkout. What happened to those magic words "Stay At Home"? They should be indoors blogging, not making me queue. They should order their groceries on line - after all, they can be at home to take the delivery.

The lady in front of me had got almost a trolley-full of fresh vegetables. Now, I appreciate it isn't her fault that it takes so long to put this stuff through the till. This is down to those selfish good-for-nothing scientists, who instead of working out how to genetically engineer fruit and veg so that it grows with machine readable bar codes, are spending all their time inventing invisibility cloaks and boring people at parties.

I do wish, though, that she hadn't decided to buy a small dolphin-shaped something (lotion, body wash?). That didn't have a readable bar-code either, which meant a wait whilst someone went off to find out that the item in question cost 50p, or whatever.

She also bought some clothes, so I had to wait and fume and watch the checkout assistant carefully and neatly fold up said clothes...

Finally, it was my turn. The supermarkets have all decided that they won't have bags by the tills any more, to encourage people to use the recyclable ones. They had an announcement about it in the shop over the PA system. They could have told me before I left home. Then I might have remembered to take my super-green reusable bags (only used once). Instead I had to ask for some evil disposable ones. "Forgotten your bags?", asked the checkout lady.

This is terrible moral blackmail. I think that we shoppers shouldn't stand for it. We should make a point of asking for disposable bags. Then only half-filling them. In the face of civil disobedience they'll be forced to abandon this silly green nonsense.

I had managed not to buy anything without a bar code - none of that fresh healthy food for me, thankyou. I'd also got some clothes. I do all my clothes shopping at the supermarket where at all possible. It's so much easier. The lady was very good, and folded my clothes neatly - what excellent service, and how nice to find a shop where they're prepared to spend time on their customers.

I sneaked out of the shop, the nasty bags in my trolley screaming "Environment Wrecker!", especially as everyone else appeared to have reusable ones. Needless to say, I won't forget my bags next time...

17 comments:

Bee said...

FIRST!

Bee said...

I think you forgot say that MY rants are totally reasonable too.

I would have been the person behind who was only buying one item, wondering WHO buys clothes at the supermarket

Brian o vretanos said...

Bee:

Your reasonableness goes without saying.

Lots of people must buy clothes there, otherwise they wouldn't sell them.

Who goes into a supermarket and only buys one item?

Unknown said...

I buy all my dolphins at the supermarket, thank you very much.

Good point on the bags, but supermarkets near me haven't started recruiting people especially for their guilt inducing skills as yet.

Brian o vretanos said...

Chris:

Yes, and I bet you take all the barcode labels off them too, just to annoy everyone.

Talking about supermarkets near you reminds me of my happy student days going to the Kwik Save in Rusholme. They had barbed wire on the roof, and there were no barcode readers or price labels, so the women on the till had to know the price of every item, which was much more efficient than all this modern technology.

Jean Knee said...

Father Al feels that much more powerful Brian.


I have one green bag which I've only used once when I purchased it to hold the other items I bought that day. baby steps


I knocked an old Lady down in the grocery store once, I panicked then yanked her up with super human strength--it was soooo horrible

Jean Knee said...

exactly what type clothing are we talking here? I hate shopping so maybe I could start buying clothes at the grocery store. do they have shoes?


don't tell Bee

Brian o vretanos said...

Jean Knee:

I think some of them have shoes. The major supermarkets all have their own fashion label, e.g. "George" at Asda (= wallmart). George is a real fashion designer, I think. They certainly do loads of women's and children's clothes, but I've no idea about that. I buy trousers, shirts, T-shirts and socks. You can get suits, casual clothes, etc. I've only just started buying clothes after 4 years of wearing out the old ones I had. The hell of divorce is not having a woman to do your clothes shopping for you...

Brian o vretanos said...

Jean Knee:

That's awful about the old woman - you're not supposed to drive a trolley like it's a car ;-)

Jean Knee said...

Oh yeah, I forgot Drew usually does the grocery shopping.


I just walked by that old Lady and my wind knocked her over I swear--horrible all the same

for a different kind of girl said...

My silly grocery store clerks seem to sigh when you tell them you have the reusable bags. They like to fill the plastic ones only half full, making me out to be Earth's nemesis.

I typically buy my dolphins off of Amazon, but they're under a unique category not found at a typical grocery store.

Brian o vretanos said...

FADKOG:

Here we pack our own bags, though they have started asking whether you need any help. Of course, no one ever says "yes". This is Britain after all ;-)

I've never seen the attraction of dolphins myself. It's obviously a girl thing...

Anndi said...

I used my "green bags" as often as I could.. until I realized I no longer had the small handy for all sorts of thins like cleaning messes the dogs made.

Besides, what else would my daughter play with and use as a hat?

Jean Knee said...

I saw the clothes in Walmart tonight while Lean had dance class. Then I realized I'd still have to try them on so I bailed on that idea. and then Pollyanna ruined my night. asswipe

Bee said...

When I go into a supermarket, it's usually to buy a cake for Andy (once a year is how I like it). One item. He usually does the grocery shopping while I stay home fighting dolphins.

kat said...

That was funny on so many levels. I have given up on grocery shopping. If our supermarket were to do deliveries I would order. In fact I did so while living in Ireland. Now I send the husband.

The one thing that really annoys me in supermarkets though is that when the price doesn't ring up at the till, they go out to get another item (only one) to see if it shows the price. Mostly it doesn't.

You'd think with all the technical progress to date they'd have a freaking computer in the till to check it. It is ridiculous.

And don't get me started about stupid cashiers. The kind that hold up a courgette and ask you "What is this?".....

Brian o vretanos said...

Anndi:

Bags are so versatile - they should be giving us more of them ;-)

Jean Knee:

Maybe you should just make clothes out of used bags...

Bee:

If it's only once a year then you shouldn't complain just because you're standing behind someone who's bought new clothes for her whole family...

Kat:

You're absolutely right. They need to improve both the technology and the staff. Another pet annoyance of mine is that most of them are too young to sell you alcohol.