A Nation of Shoppers
Dec. 22nd, 2006 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksTiming your visits to Tesco's is a work of art. You try to be one step ahead of both other shoppers and, indeed, Tesco's itself. The major aims are to shop (a) when Tesco' s thinks there will be more people shopping than is actually the case and (b) when it isn't relatively busy.
The former reduces the time you are likely to have to queue at the check-out, while the latter reduces the "get out of my fucking way" factor when you are doing your actual shopping.
I did most of my Christmas shopping last Monday, but, inevitably, a few items were forgotten. So, with a sinking heart, I timed my visit this morning so that I would be reaching the check-out at 9.05am, just after most of the main day-shift has started.
Although this reduced the queueing at the check-out time, the "get out of my fucking way" factor in the supermarket itself could not be avoided. The fresh fruit-and-vegetable looked like a no-go area from the Lebanon (that's the bit in Asia, not in Indiana, my mid-west blue collar friends), with bodies, metal and random scatterings of blasted fruit everywhere.
Some moron driving a disablemobile had clearly decided that picking one of the busiest days of the year was a good time to do her shopping, thus taking up two-thirds of every aisle she inhabited. Others, even worse, were shopping in packs, like crazed hyenas, accompanied by baby hyenas whose main aim was to jump out backwards to block your way, endangering their lives more than yours, just as your cart was approaching at a rate of knots.
Meanwhile, everyone was buying enough stuff to last them through to next Christmas, rather than just a couple of days. "Ahh", they might say knowingly, "but we are having people over".
But, well, let's get this straight. There's only the same number of people in the UK (in fact, there are fewer, since many are spending their Christmas stranded at Heathrow Airport. Hah hah, I say) as there usually are. So, unless people are suddenly eating six times as much stuff as usual, is there any reason for shopping trolleys to be loaded in a fashion that would feed a family of 30 for a month? OK, extra booze, understandable. But Tesco's had run out of rice (well, the rice that I buy, ordinary American long-grain).
I began to wonder if this wasn't ordinary Christmas shopping, Had there been a news item on Radio Five about a nuclear bomb going off in central Asia as a result of destabilisation in Turkmenistan? Did all these people know something that I didn't? I thought of asking a nearby shopper whether we were in imminent danger of a nuclear cataclysm, but then I thought better of it. Best not to worry her, I decided.
Eventually I returned home with my items forgotten from Monday and locked to door behind me with a sense of relief. Fuck 'em, I thought, that's the last time I have to leave this place until December 29th.
The former reduces the time you are likely to have to queue at the check-out, while the latter reduces the "get out of my fucking way" factor when you are doing your actual shopping.
I did most of my Christmas shopping last Monday, but, inevitably, a few items were forgotten. So, with a sinking heart, I timed my visit this morning so that I would be reaching the check-out at 9.05am, just after most of the main day-shift has started.
Although this reduced the queueing at the check-out time, the "get out of my fucking way" factor in the supermarket itself could not be avoided. The fresh fruit-and-vegetable looked like a no-go area from the Lebanon (that's the bit in Asia, not in Indiana, my mid-west blue collar friends), with bodies, metal and random scatterings of blasted fruit everywhere.
Some moron driving a disablemobile had clearly decided that picking one of the busiest days of the year was a good time to do her shopping, thus taking up two-thirds of every aisle she inhabited. Others, even worse, were shopping in packs, like crazed hyenas, accompanied by baby hyenas whose main aim was to jump out backwards to block your way, endangering their lives more than yours, just as your cart was approaching at a rate of knots.
Meanwhile, everyone was buying enough stuff to last them through to next Christmas, rather than just a couple of days. "Ahh", they might say knowingly, "but we are having people over".
But, well, let's get this straight. There's only the same number of people in the UK (in fact, there are fewer, since many are spending their Christmas stranded at Heathrow Airport. Hah hah, I say) as there usually are. So, unless people are suddenly eating six times as much stuff as usual, is there any reason for shopping trolleys to be loaded in a fashion that would feed a family of 30 for a month? OK, extra booze, understandable. But Tesco's had run out of rice (well, the rice that I buy, ordinary American long-grain).
I began to wonder if this wasn't ordinary Christmas shopping, Had there been a news item on Radio Five about a nuclear bomb going off in central Asia as a result of destabilisation in Turkmenistan? Did all these people know something that I didn't? I thought of asking a nearby shopper whether we were in imminent danger of a nuclear cataclysm, but then I thought better of it. Best not to worry her, I decided.
Eventually I returned home with my items forgotten from Monday and locked to door behind me with a sense of relief. Fuck 'em, I thought, that's the last time I have to leave this place until December 29th.
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The Goomfw Factor
Date: 2006-12-22 10:08 am (UTC)But food shopping is another world. I used to take some delight in going to Sainsburys on Dec 24th and keeping my patience when all about were losing theirs. Queues 20-deep at the checkouts? Just get a magazine and wait. Run out of sprouts? Get something else instead. The true problem is that Christmas brings out the amateurs and the families. People think they need a spouse with them to help with the shopping and that means they have to bring the kids as well.
This way lies madness and the extra assistance needed to put plastic bags in a boot is out-weighed by a need to keep the brats in line and an element of consultative decision-making. "Which kind of stuffing should we have, the Oatmeal & Pomegranate or the Goat Dropping Puree?". If you're on your own, you just make the decision and move on.
The other tactic which is useful is that of doing everything in reverse when supermarkets open. On Sunday at 11am there will be a big crowd outside your local Sainsburys. The doors will open and people will flood in and follow the normal path, all stopping in the fresh fruit and veg. Avoid the sheep. Go straight to the back of the stoor and work against the flow, ending at fruit and veg. You'll have peace and quiet in toiletries, booze and frozen foods and by the time you get back for the sprouts it'll be 11.20 and the masses will have gone. There won't yet be anything sold out and you get to hit the checkouts before those with mountainous trolleys get there.
Re: The Goomfw Factor
Date: 2006-12-22 10:26 am (UTC)Do we all get up earlier in London? Because here, it's 10am until 4pm on a Sunday.
I am aware of the "shop in reverse order" trick and, if I am ever shopping early on a Sunday, that's what I do.
Since I shop quickly, I could get in at 10am and be out by 10.10, thus eliminating the check-out queue factor as well.
Unfortunately, Tesco's has moved to prevent me exploiting my able-bodied fleet-of-foot advantage. They now open the doors at 9.30am, but only open the check-outs at 10am.
What use is that to me? No way can I idle about for half an hour doing my shopping. So I have to arrive at 9.45, by which time many of the people shopping are drifting into the cheese and milk sector anyway.
I've given up my Sunday morning shop as a result, and have adopted a new tactic -- the 4.45pm shop on a Thursday or Friday. This seems to work well in London, where it appear to be businer in Tesco's at 10.45pm than at 4.45pm.
PJ
Re: The Goomfw Factor
Date: 2006-12-22 10:57 am (UTC)Oh. They aren't charitable organisations. Silly me.
Greatest Hits
Date: 2006-12-22 11:21 am (UTC)One piece you wrote so exactly described my situation that I printed it out (having altered Birks to Nicholson) and stuck it on the wall by my desk. Thanks for that!
"Other people quit things when they get fed up with them, whereas I tend to carry on out of a misguided sense of loyalty, responsibility, debt, pigheadedness and "not wanting to let people down". Some Nicholson time has to consist of Nicholson time, not "what can I do that will make other people appreciate me" time."
Better half then pointed out that at least some of the people who used to receive Greatest Hits presumably paid a subscription up front to do so and this makes the promised update somewhat overdue!
Re: Greatest Hits
Date: 2006-12-22 12:07 pm (UTC)I've actually typed five and a half pages (in Word) and I should be aboe to photocopy that next Friday. So progress is being made.
On your final point, my response depends on whether it is
a) really something your better half said or
b) something that you are saying, under cover of pretending that your better half said it.
But I shall restrain myself in either case and simply say that, after a quarter of a century of subsidising the production of GH with my time and money, I would think that if anyone was "owed" anything, it would be me.
Clearly, some other people don't think that way. But it's nice to know the gratitude that such a long period of time engenders.
None.
Ungrateful bastards, the general public. But, well, I knew that, anyway.
As people's subs have run out the past while, I've carried on sending it if I've thought that they would be interested in seeing it, whether they sent me any "token" appreciation or not (I believe that I explained the "real" cost of producing GH, does no-one take any notice of what I say?). But, for the mean of thought and pocket, I'd happily return any cash to anyone who requested it (and probably carry on sending the zine if and when it was produced, just out of spite).
As arguments go, I consider this specious, small-minded, and petty. An exclamation mark at the end does nothing to mitigate the seriousness of what is stated.
I'm sending you a cheque Martin. I will also be sending you the GH.
PJ
Re: Greatest Hits
Date: 2006-12-22 02:30 pm (UTC)Createst Hits was "just another paid magazine subscription" to her.
I read every line, every time. The girls read most of it, most of the time. Claire never read it - it was just something else for her to pick up off the floor.
I think keeping all your readers informed of your change of plans would have been sensible. That somebody has written publically what others must have been thinking privately is just one manifestation of new technology.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-22 01:05 pm (UTC)Of course, the overshop syndrome applies in the Woodhousehouse - we appear to need about 18 litres of fruit juice between now and Wednesday, for example. It's not like we have to worry about any visitors other than our standard three close relatives either: we had all the neighbours over a couple of nights back.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-22 01:36 pm (UTC)Most remarkably, we were all sitting around watching EastEnders or whatever when I heard a strange, wet sound behind me. It turned out that my (let's get this right) godson's mother's brother-in-law, a hulk of a man much given to building entire extensions in an 8-hour shift and the like, was blubbing like a baby at the emotional trauma being portrayed on the small screen, and being comforted by his waif-like wife.
How the other 99% live, eh.
Andy.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-22 01:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-22 02:40 pm (UTC)Titmus
Did you get one of these?
Date: 2006-12-22 04:53 pm (UTC)Re: Did you get one of these?
Date: 2006-12-22 08:54 pm (UTC)Then again, I didn't wander down the Christmassy aisles that much.
I liked the quote about "destroying children's innocence".
"What's that for, mummy?" asks six-year-old daughter.
"Er, it's for firemen".
"Nahhh", says eight-year-old elder brother. "Firemen's poles are over there. That, that there, that's a stripper's pole, mum".
PJ