Even in these days of multifarious sexual proclivities, most men still find solace in the love of a good woman. Aren’t they just wonderful in their womanliness!
Give one a shopping trolley though, and see them show their true colours! Great googly moogly! They become violent, blinkered, sociopathic maniacs. The supermarket is not a place for men. We don’t know the rules of engagement. Unfortunately, in my “family”, I’m the one who does the shopping, so I’ve been subjected to this most hazardous of environments for the adult male almost every day for years.
If you survive the dodgem car trolleys, there are still the shelf stacker employees to contend with. Pulling bloody great warehouse stacked metal trolley-cum-lorry things with reckless disregard for human life. Then they park the bloody things right mid-aisle, so that there is insufficient room to pass either side. If you have the unmitigated audacity to try and reach a product, well, the wrath of him above is nothing compared to the tirade of abuse you’ll suffer. You see, the supermarket exists to provide employment, not for people to shop in. A customer is very much viewed by staff as an inferior.
Then there are other shoppers, a detestable group right enough. Many seem to consider the shopping function to be of secondary importance to the social swirl of Tesco. They meet in groups of about sixty, right at the entrance to an aisle, reluctantly moving a few inches, only when you shout “EXCUSE ME!!” Then they look at you askance, like something they’d stood on.
Then at the checkout, the woman in front will have wads of money off coupons, all requiring to be scanned. Why did I pick this bloody aisle? Then she’ll pay by cheque, cheque by God! Why? Then she’ll take a half hour to pack her bags, even though she refused the assistance offered by the checkout assistant.
Then there's the family of chavs behind you in the queue, I say behind, but at least one of their progeny will have squeezed past you and be playing with your goods on the conveyer belt. When it eventually comes your turn to pay, the chavs will ignore your presence, invade your space. The brat will go to the packing area while you are trying to pack your shopping, the parents will stand in intimate contact with you whilst you attempt to pay. This is more of a security risk in these days of chip ‘n’ pin card payment. Shear ignorance!
Then there are the bastards who park in the disabled spaces, or worse still, sit arrogantly in their car on the double yellow right at the door - what if an ambulance or fire engine needed in?
Nothing sends the blood pressure soaring like a trip to Tesco. Now Christmas is coming, the annoyance is set to increase exponentially. Good grief Charlie Brown, I despair!
Oli (17/11/06)
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Written by ellipinnock (1753 comments posted) 17th November 2006 | That's the second time this week that I've come across the word 'multifarious'...
'Aren’t they just wonderful in their womanliness!'
Are we? I hadn't noticed 
I don't think anyone is equiped to handle supermarkets, they are the home of all things devilish (multifarious sexual procilivities probably not included-or at least sold without the batteries). I prefer shops you can walk in the front of and see the back of at the same time.
Funny
Elli |
Written by Phil (6713 comments posted) 17th November 2006 | I too do the family shop. I'm going to have to leave myself open to cries of 'sexist pig' here.
Why is that most women (I've counted, it's true) always looked shocked when they are asked for money at the checkout and then spend ages searching their handbags for purse?
Why is it that women, meeting friends on an aisle park their trolleys side by side so that no-one else can pass? What's wrong with end to end?
Why is it..? I give up.
Perhaps I am a sexist pig - but I deny it.
And yes Oli - aren’t they just wonderful in their womanliness!
All the best,
Phil (frustrated shopper)
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Written by Witzl (1585 comments posted) 19th November 2006 | Phil and Oli -- I want to say 'oink, oink,' but the awful truth is that 1) I have noticed the phenomenon Phil mentions too, to an extent, and 2) my most obnoxiously, unremittingly feminist friend, a former cashier in a supermarket, also reluctantly has admitted the tendency among our gender to look amazed when asked to produce money at the check-out counter. The thing about parking trolleys side by side though -- guys do that too, or at least they do in Dumfries. Perhaps the reason it seems as though so many more women do that is because we have, heretofore, been the ones who tend to do most of the shopping. As men gradually take over this role, I suspect you will find, as I have, that they do it too when given half the chance. My own personal grievance is people with strollers who walk two and three abreast, hogging the pavement and using their own babies as an excuse to block the sidewalk.
Okay, now I feel like a traitor, so I will try to analyze why it is that women have this delayed reaction at supermarket cashiers. Women's purses, which quite often contain the belongings of our children and partners who don't want to carry their own things, are generally so full that we can barely find our own wallets. Moreover, as we stand there at the check-out counter, we are thinking of so many things -- what we are going to cook for dinner, if we've forgotten something (which I almost always have), if those three onions in the larder are going to be okay or we should rush back to the produce section to buy a couple more, whether the cashier's five nose piercings and three eyebrow piercings do anything to improve her looks, why the man in front of her has three loaves of white bread, a pack of daffodil bulbs, enough floor wax to do Carnegie Hall, and two boxes of tampons, whether it's going to rain and she can get home fast enough to get the wash off the line . . .
And if that was me in front of you the other day Oli, the only reason I paid by check was that the damn kids cleared me out and I never had the chance to get to the bank . . . |
Written by Bottleblondesurfer (3352 comments posted) 19th November 2006 | Yeah OK very vunny and provocative at the same time. I think I know where you are coming from,now.
I liked this because a bit of humour in a rant makes it so much more accessible. I note your pieces,here, are passionate, subversive, provacative often biased but crucially never boring (the only unpardonable sin in writing) which is why I always read you.
cheers
J
P.S I may need to post a response, though |
Written by wattle (117 comments posted) 20th November 2006 | ‘Talisker’, ‘Talisker’, ‘Talisker,’ what is it with you (guys) and finding space around lady people. I suspect it’s a power/control thing; that must be it, take over the supermarkets and have larger trolleys for guys. Guys will go to the gold card isle. Females to the typing pool isle; it’s more modest and much narrower, no room to open a tabloid knee to knee. Yes, and of-cause females will stand aside when ‘they’ did but pass by. Yes lets get back to the good old days when men were men and sheep were nervous.
My advice would be to always take the dog, you can both wait outside and don’t worry to much about the people in Guantanamo Bay, spare a thought for the poor checkout chicks listening to several months of non-stop piped Christmas carols.
Did I mention that I liked the write or did I let myself become distracted again.
Regards, wattle
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