The Adventure of the Weekly Shop

In which I get annoyed at everyday things...

Is becoming increasingly more grumpy a part of the aging process? There are lots of big things to be angry about and I certainly am angry about them, but as I go about my everyday life I find the tiny irritations really wind me up. It's time for Game of Moans, Strictly Come Groaning, The Great British Hate Off, The Despair Shop... (I could almost just do a whole list of these!)

One of the most annoying things I do is go to the supermarket. By the time I arrive back home, I am filled with inexplicable rage.

First of all, I have to jump in the car and drive there. I do not claim to be a good driver by any means- I'm frankly pleased if I make it to my destination without having hit anything. But my reactions are fairly good. This doesn't seem to be the case with many drivers on the road. I live in a busy town with a lot of traffic and it is so annoying when drivers fail to pull out in perfectly good gaps in the traffic. 

The most annoying thing though is traffic lights. It seems obvious to me that if you are stopped at traffic lights then you are waiting for the lights to turn green. To some people though this isn't obvious and they sit and admire the view of the litter bin at the side of the road. The lights turn green and they are busy staring at a bus stop and, after what seems like the length of a geological era, finally notice the green bulb is lit up and start to move. Sometimes you can sit behind several cars and the driver at the front takes an age to react to the light changing and then one or more of the people behind take an age to react to the person in front moving. Some of my local traffic lights allow very limited time on green and it is deeply annoying when you get stuck waiting for a second cycle through the lights because some drivers can't react when a light goes green. Surely they must always be crashing into things because they can't brake quickly if their reaction times are that slow?

Eventually, I arrive at the car park. It's rare that I actually go to a car park that is full so bad parking is not something that tends to affect me directly. I find it irrationally annoying though. I am terrible at parking myself but I always ensure I am firmly in the bay. There seems to be a portion of society- my estimate would be about 3%- who just stop their car vaguely in the vicinity of a parking space, not worrying if they prevent spaces next to them from being used or make the road narrow for other drivers. There is also an even smaller portion of society who seem to park wherever the hell they like. You will rarely go to a car park of any size and not see someone parked in something that is very clearly not a parking space, be it a pedestrian walkway, trolley park or just part of the road. I can only assume these people are either incredibly stupid and can't work out what a parking space looks like or they are so self-centred they believe they are above everyone else and can abandon their car wherever the hell they like. 

I don't know about you but when I do the weekly shop I whiz around as quickly as I can and get it over and done with. I'd prefer online shopping but for the fact that it ends up costing more because it's harder to take advantage of offers and the fact that usually they don't bring half of what you actually want. Apparently, I am alone in the desire to get my shopping done with speed because everyone else in the supermarket seems to do it at a snail's pace. Many people seem to lack the basic skill of being able to look at shelves and be aware that other people are around them. So often people block the aisle with their trolley, oblivious to the fact that three other shoppers are trying to get past. I also find it baffling how for many people shopping appears to be a family outing- apparently it can take four people to put some stuff in a trolley. It's cheaper than a trip to Alton Tower I suppose.

Part of the reason people have to look at the shelves so intensely is because the supermarkets seem to make it as difficult as possible to actually do your shopping. Invariably there are items you want that are missing from the shelves. The supermarkets like to blame Brexit but in most cases, they have plenty of the item in storage, it's just that no one has bothered to restock the shelf. Sometimes there are a small number of the items you need on the shelf meaning you have to virtually climb on it to get what you need. I'm quite tall and often find I can barely reach things deep on the shelf near the top so I wonder how short people manage. Just to balance things out though, some shelves will be overstocked, and trying to remove an item becomes an impromptu game of Jenga. 

Then I get to the till. Often I find the person in front has no spatial awareness and throws their items onto the conveyor, somehow managing to take up five times the area that their shopping actually requires. On my last visit, most of the length of the conveyor was taken up by a baguette with the shopping thrown on behind it. Many people seem to not understand the basic principle of placing the plastic triangular prism to separate your shopping and theirs too. Our family once wondered what these fake Toblerones were actually called as surely they must have a name for someone to order them. We christened them 'CSDs' (Customer Segregation Devices).

Despite the process of loading the conveyor quickly, many people suddenly seem surprised when the normal processes of shopping need to occur. 'Oh yes,' they seem to think as the cashier starts ringing up items. 'I really should find some shopping bags'. 'Oh, I need to pay? Now where in my cavernous purse is my reward card. Hmm, it seems to be nowhere near where my credit card is." How do these people get by in life? 

The cashiers themselves often seem to be a lottery. I appreciate that it is an underpaid job and often not the most pleasant one but I don't think that means the basics of human decency should be ignored. Some of them act as if you don't exist, casually throwing your shopping in your direction and not saying a word to you. Others go too far in the opposite direction and start a whole conversation about an item of your shopping. These cashiers seem to think you will have strong opinions about grocery items. A recent cashier made an enormous fuss about my purchase of candy-floss-flavoured grapes, which in reality I had purchased due to the fact they were one of the cheaper options and had the longest expiry date on them. Only a few cashiers exist in the Goldilocks zone of engaging you in conversation without going too far. 

See? I fear a future of being a grumpy old man is well in progress. It's not my fault that other people are so annoying.