The boring thread.....

[Vlad]

Ok but here is the obligatory disclaimer


Disclaimer: None of the below is intended to be a personal attack on the elderly (coffin-dodgers), check-out assistants or children. So if you are elderly, a checkout assistant, or a child, know some-one or are related on your mothers side to either a coffin-dodger or check-out assistants, or know a child or a in way related to a child, or where one previously I do love you and this is all a bit of fun ok?
Anyway moaning about it will only make me depressed.

I did post this many moons ago, I shop  online now so don't have a pop.

Asda, the Saga.

Yesterday I shopped at Asda, on my own, (Lady readers will shudder at the mere thought of a man alone doing the weekly shop)  my beloved, peace and blessings on her name and worth the camel was having her eyes tested and gave me a list of items (which I lost) and with a sigh pointed me in the direction of Asda...

So I went, ...boldly, where no Vlad has gone before and without a safety net.


Now, I'm no more stressed than your average brand-aware psychotic, but supermarkets really do it to me. If there's one place where the UK gun laws should be relaxed (in fact, allowed completely), it's while wandering the aisles of the local Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, or whatever the hell else there is. Here's why...

First of all - you walk into Asda your local happy supermarket. You need money. Where are the cash-points? They're placed (for your convenience) behind the rows of shopping baskets, and there's 4 idiots milling around either trying to remember how to use new-fangled things like cash-machines, failing to remember which page of their diaries they wrote the PIN number on, or just stood there, watching. And then there's one person, just waiting for the other morons to get the out the way. and the stress is going up already. Yes, that person is me.

I can't deny it - I'm Type A all the way when it comes to shopping. I know what I want (pretty much) because  my belovedI wife  has told me, I know where it all is (unless they've moved it all around again - a joyous marketing ploy to make us see what else is in stock at the store, and custom designed to annoy off those of us who wanted to shop quickly), and I simply want to go in, get money, put the stuff I need in a trolley, take it to a till, manned by that fat bugger Elton John,  (more of Elton in Part 2) exchange money for goods, and get out. Rapidly. Is that too much to ask?

Obviously, the answer to this simple question is "Yes.". Because it never happens. By the time I've finally managed to get to the cash-points - and before you ask, no, there isn't another one on my route between home and nearest supermarket - all the idiots who preceded me, as well as all the ones who were already prepared with money, are in the store. The day is going downhill - rapidly.

First - fresh veg. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd start wearing a tinfoil hat to block my brainwaves, because there is always some coffin dodger who's parked his trolley in front of the veg section I want, and is away weighing his onions, or counting cloves on garlic bulbs or something. And as soon as you move their bloody trolley, you can hear the "tut" from over your left shoulder I start to wish the old bugger would croak, but then I might feel guilty as I stepped over them to carry on with my shopping.

And so it goes on - and on and on and on. The bread counter is populated by morons who either a) can't remember what sort of bread they like or b)can't work out whether 2 loaves for 99p is a better deal than buying a white one for 44p and a brown one for 55p. (I couldn't make this cr%p up - I've seen it happen, and been forced to listen to the ensuing conversation, and all without resorting to ripping their tongues out), In the dairy section, there are people who still haven't worked out the colour coding on milk, nor how to read the labels on the shelves beside the milk. "Is the green label semi-skimmed, or full fat?" I hear them ask. And I know they've asked this many times - because I've seen them many times, always in the same place, always asking the same bloody thing.

Invariably, there's a screaming brood of kids somewhere in the shop, and I find myself praying for them to walk into a shelving unit, and die under a rain of falling baked bean tins. But no, it never happens. Instead, they just wander the aisles, screaming like recently departed lost souls in some particularly vile purgatory. Dante was wrong - the ninth level of Hell is populated by people who think supermarkets are great places to take kids. Personally, I think that we should fence off a couple of the trolley parks, and leave toddlers out in the rain, chained to the railings the same way people have to leave dogs outside shops. They can't run away, and they'll still be there when you come back for them.

There's always some pair of coffin-dodging weirdo's, who have to walk side-by-side down the aisles. it's like they're symbiotically attached, Siamese twins joined at the shopping trolley. They have no knowledge of the other people in the store, most of the time I'm not sure they even really know they're in a store, but they successfully manage to block the traffic flow for half the store.

In along with all the customers, there's the staff as well. Just to make life more fun, they haul around cages full of stock, and then leave it in the aisle - just far enough out from the side that it makes life more difficult to get past them when you're shoving the trolley.

Finally, the tills. There's some poor conveyor-monkey sat there, whose whole life consists of sweeping other people's good over the laser, listening to it beep for each item. The entire process is scripted to a tee, from saying "Hi" in the world's most bored voice and asking whether you need help with packing your purchases, through the beeps and straight into handing over the cash - it's all just a process, fuelled by dangerous levels of tedium, boredom and retardation.

And the worst of it is - there's none of the other stores that are any better. They all seem to have a policy of employing people who think that working for superstores is the best that they can aspire to. They're all just as bad - they all attract the same kinds of people, both as customers and employees. There is one way of avoiding most of this cr%p - not all of it, but most of it - it involves shopping at about 3 in the morning, at the local Asda superstore... And don't get me bloody started on those bleedin trolleys......

In part 2, The Standoff. Vlad v Elton on checkout 5
Also available on Netflix

Yesterday at 04:55:03 PM

I'm all ears..
But don't use any long words..
Nor swear words.. Please don't talk about sex.. It buggers up my memory.. Nor wonky trollies..

😂😂 Has you commanded I made it so. 

[klondike]

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.

[Silver Tabby]

Having another 'sorting' day today - clothing this time.  There are to be two collections tomorrow so am going through wardrobes and drawers being ruthless.  Anything not worn in the last 12 months is going out!  Nemo keeps coming in and sitting on things - says he is helping by pressing them for me!

Hmm - I wonder if charity collections take cats!!??

[GrannyMac]

Vlad, love it and recognise so much of it!  I was recently irritated by a very large couple debating the qualities of lard, when I just wanted a pack of butter!  

I was up very early the other day, and went to Tesco before 8am, it was bliss.  No queues, no beggars by the cashpoints, no groups of international students looking quizzically at the loo rolls, no kids. 

[Vlad]

Vlad, love it and recognise so much of it!  I was recently irritated by a very large couple debating the qualities of lard, when I just wanted a pack of butter! 

I was up very early the other day, and went to Tesco before 8am, it was bliss.  No queues, no beggars by the cashpoints, no groups of international students looking quizzically at the loo rolls, no kids.

😂😂 Oddly enough GM I do miss it all, both my good lady and myself are now housebound so don't get out. 

[GrannyMac]

Sorry to hear that Vlad.  But online deliveries are such a boon!

Looking forward to the next episode. 👍🏽

[Scrumpy]

Vlad.. You have a wonderful sense of humour.. and are able to use it when writing.
I too like to get out there early before those other people arrive.. 
My favourites are the loyal husbands who hang on to a trolley and stand exactly where the wife tells them..

[klondike]

From observation a Bus Pass seems to me to often be a licence to block supermarket aisles. Not that the young are any better. Nor the middle aged. If fact everybody except me seems to have one.

[Vlad]

Sorry to hear that Vlad.  But online deliveries are such a boon!

Looking forward to the next episode. 👍🏽

Thank you GM even online deliveries have their problem, I once ended up with a delivery of 4 kg of salt, I only wanted a little refill...I am still using it...

Today at 11:54:51 AM

Vlad.. You have a wonderful sense of humour.. and are able to use it when writing.
I too like to get out there early before those other people arrive..
My favourites are the loyal husbands who hang on to a trolley and stand exactly where the wife tells them..

Been there, done it, frozen to the spot, hand on trolley in a death grip, there should be a holding area for husbands who have been told.." Wait!" by the boss. Were we can stay until collected. 

Another thing that really annoys me is the complete twats who just at the point of completing checkout process sends the other half off to aisle 152 for some must have organic product and then shrug and smile at you as they hold the whole bloody  line up. Of course, you have all your shopping on the belt and are hemmed in so going to another checkout isn't an option.

The supermarkets should provide complimentary access to the PA for me to announce "This is a customer irritated announcement. This dickhead in the wax jacket and hunter boots is holding the line up because of (A) Failure to plan and (B) because little Tarquin simply has to have organic olive paste. If anyone in the store has a pistol or suitable edged weapon please bring it to checkout number 3 immediately."

Furthermore, the cashier who tries to strike up a chat. "Any nice plans for the weekend?" In my shopping is a cut loaf, bacon, eggs, brown sauce, a family pack of Doritos and 2 slabs of Stella. "What bloody plans do you think I have love?"  

[Mups]

Vlad,   do calm yourself m'dear.   It's not good for the old ticker.

You say  . . .    "Thank you GM even online deliveries have their problem, I once ended up with a delivery of 4 kg of salt, I only wanted a little refill...I am still using it..."

But the salt will be handy if we have snowstorms tomorrow,  or you could go on Slug patrol around your prize Dahlias, armed with a pot full of the stuff.

You could keep some to cure any hides you might have in the shed,   or I've heard in some religions they use it so sprinkle around to keep bad spirits away even. 

Personally,  I think the Dahlia idea might be more useful.   

[klondike]

a holding area for husbands

Ah that reminds me of happy days when our neighbours were a couple of the same age as us. We used one car for shopping for both couples. The ladies toured the local Sainsbury (iirc) while their husbands frequented the local hostelry nearby. 

[Scrumpy]

Don't forget about the cashier change over just as you reach the head of the queue..
You know it's going to be a long wait when they greet each other with the words 
'Hi Beryl.. haven't seen you since I had my Piles op'

[Vlad]

Ah that reminds me of happy days when our neighbours were a couple of the same age as us. We used one car for shopping for both couples. The ladies toured the local Sainsbury (iirc) while their husbands frequented the local hostelry nearby.

It should be a law. 😂