Things that piss me off! - Shopping
by zYX/a51


Things used to piss Cryton of Apocalypse off and he wasn't afraid to 
say it. The trials and tribulations of everyday living would regularly 
grab and make off with his goat. In fact, I never actually saw him in 
the possession of a cloth as he had misplaced his rag almost every 
other day. But, of course, that was almost ten years ago. The world
must have improved... Corrected it's previous mistakes... Put right
what once was wrong. Surely I couldn't be the wrong guy in the wrong 
place at the wrong time!

The year is 2004, the name of the place is England in the United 
Kingdom. I can feel a sense of injustice, my blood boils. I'm pissed off!

The saga continues....

It seemed like a normal day, in a normal city, in a normal household. 
UNTIL! The fridge opened! A solitary out of date egg and bare shelves 
could only mean one thing. It was time to tool up and go shopping!

I psychologically prepared myself. It was a short journey. Just 
purchase some food and come home. No big deal. Yeah. Right... 
Wrong!

The scientific insight that could be gained into the human psyche 
from a study of behavior in supermarkets would be invaluable. In an 
almost Jekyl and Hyde scenario people can change from the most upstanding 
citizens in society to utter cunts as soon as they walk through the glass 
sliding doors of a 24 hour Tesco's.

My own personal observations show this condition seems to get worse as 
the subjects grow older. The average pension age humanoid will enter 
the premises under the impression that they are controlling a shopping 
trolley. Great care must be taken not to come within at least a couple 
of metres of this vehicle due to a danger of severely fucking up your 
ankles. Treat this as a vehicle without a driver, a unwritten disaster 
movie if you will. Along with the driver having virtually no hearing or 
sight abilities left the reaction time needed for them to turn a corner 
is approximately thirty minutes. Please also note that if your body is 
in direct line of sight with a "Buy One, Get One Free" offer you are 
very likely to be viciously mown down in the attempt to "grab a bargain".

Probably the next important rule of supermarket safety is steer clear 
of any shelves or freezers holding products with small yellow "reduced 
to clear" stickers on them. Like the Sirens of legends gone by the lure 
of financial savings that can be made will be met under the debt of 
almost certain peril. In most cases you will not be able to enter an 
area containing a dense population of yellow stickered items due to the 
writhing mass of human bodies already in an virtual rugby scrum around 
the shelf.

For the daring among you, if you decide to risk the danger for the (St 
Ivel) gold at the end of rainbow here are some tips:

1. Again, the pensioner is a foe you should pay approach with great 
caution. Diving into a mob of pensioners would be a kamikaze mission 
and if you find yourself ambushed while selecting cheap groceries don't 
be fooled. They have elbows, handbags and a fucking great metal trolley 
at their disposal which they aren't afraid to use. Some of these people 
fought in a war for their country so they aren't going to lose a battle 
for some thin cut, low fat streaky bacon! As a general rule, as in life, 
the female of the species is always the most vicious.

2. The snatch technique is the favourite method of the most avid shopper. 
It's simply to reach out and grab the item in the fastest time possible 
as soon as it appears in your sights. Please note that pensioner reaction 
times are highly accelerated in these situations. The reasons for this 
are currently unknown and requires further research.

3. If you are nearing the end of your snatch period and are attempting 
to gauge when the best time to escape back to the centre of the aisle 
is, keep a close eye on potential enemies closing in. You'll notice 
these as people gazing across to reduced items in a stance not unlike 
a meercat. Be warned, as if they zero in on something favourable, 
tasty, soon to be out of date and cheap they will barge in rudely, 
ruthlessly and show no mercy!

Once you are back trundling down the aisles you should not think of this
as some mundane passageway through tins of baked beans and super noodles. 
This is a busy motorway with no signs, no speed limits and no rules. 
Think back to the Mad Max movies and you'll get the general idea.

You get an unverving feeling as you progress down the shop. Like you 
are the only person looking directly where the trolley is going. Everyone 
else seems to gaze from side to side, up and down but NEVER towards the 
path the trolley is about to take. Is there something strange about 
these people? Have the body snatchers infiltrated us finally but are 
currently restricting their operations to retail establishments, waiting 
to make their move. Relax, it's easy to get paranoid but, like many other 
situations in life, evidence suggests this is due to a large percentage 
of fucking stupid people making up the general public.

The best advice is to advance on impulse power but make regular scans of 
the surrounding area for enemy craft. In the event of an imminent collision 
I recommend evasive manoeuvres as the inertial dampeners won't enable you 
to emerge unscathed from a painful twat in either the ribs or toe from a 
hulking wheeled, metal behemoth!

Your final mission is to negotiate the checkouts. There will normally be 
about 20 to 30 of these but an unwritten rule states no more than half
will ever be open, typically 5 or 6 is the best you can hope for. Don't be 
fooled by a "10 items or less" checkout as evil shoppers frequently abuse 
this checkout with loads of 20 or more products. Cunts!

When selecting a checkout never fall under the false impression that the 
shortest queue will allow you to pay for your items in the shortest amount 
of time. Oh no! It takes just one, thick as shit individual to grind a checkout 
to a total halt for ten minutes or so. Ever heard of the saying that 
someone couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag. Well, watch one of 
these daft twats try and fight their way into a plastic bag! You can 
generally stand back and watch 20-30 items pass helplessly down the conveyor 
belt as an idiot tries to separate two pieces of thin plastic!

A helpful checkout operator will usually see this disaster approaching and 
offer a hand of assistance:

"Do you want any help packing?"

A true pure breed tosser will never accept a logical solution to his dilemma 
such as this though, they will happily see themselves buried under an 
avalanche of ever advancing groceries.

The actual payment for goods is usually no less harrowing either. You would 
be genuinly surprised how many variables their could be for handing over 
money for groceries. Let's look at this as a coding problem:

Function Pay(Wallet,Purse,Cash,CreditCard)
If Wallet Or Purse=False Then Check Aisle, Shop, Car, Carpark, Arse, 
Last Place Put It!:End
If Cash Or CreditCard=False Then Check Wallet, Purse, Everywhere!:End
If Arse Or Elbow=False Then Exit, ReturnToWindows()
PayForGroceriesForFucksSake
End Function

Seems like a simple function. Well, imagine it's in an interpreted version 
of BASIC in which this function takes about 20 minutes to execute.

If you've survived this far, paid, packed and are ready to make an escape 
from this hell above ground. Do just that! Don't look across to the 
cigarette counter to pick up a previously forgotten item, quit while 
you're ahead and manage without it for seven days. For you have another 
nemesis here in the form of: The National Lottery Terminal.

You don't do the lottery, you aren't interested in the lottery, you have 
an ordinary Mars bar in your hand and you just want to buy it. The same 
can't be said for the ugly rabble of would-be, hopeful millionaires in 
front of you in ripped tracksuit bottoms and grey/white (mainly grey!) 
trainers. The majority will generally fuck about clueless but not present 
you with any great delay.

Pray you don't have a Lottery obsessive slash syndicate organiser in 
front of you though. These are usually identified as short chubby Women
in their mid-forties with glasses. I hate to stereotype but it's hard 
not to in this case. The most distinguishing feature is the bits of fag 
packet (or similar scabby piece of paper) they are clutching in their 
paws. On approaching the counter she will try and convert some kinda of 
ancient language of scrawls from these, ahem, parchments into about 20-30 
lines of lottery numbers... Badly! Common sense dictates she could have 
filled in the lottery slips and bought them completed to the counter. 
Oh but for a perfect world! Chuckle.

Upon wasting ten minutes of everyone elses life she jests: "Sorry, I'm 
not good with numbers!". In any other circumstance the irony would be 
amusing.

Once you breathe the fresh, petrol fuelled, air of the supermarket car 
park. Don't look back! You have a full six days to live before you have 
to endure this again.