June | 2012 | draliman on life

Ah, Shopping

June 24, 2012 draliman 4 comments

The joys of food shopping. It has to be done. Otherwise, I’ll starve to death.

Okay, I could do my shopping online and get it delivered, but I really don’t fancy that at all. I want to choose my own bananas. I’m very particular about my bananas. I need them in various states of ripeness so I get a nice-to-eat banana every day for my lunch at work.

If a product is out of stock, I want to make the decision whether or not to “substitute it for a similar product”.

I don’t want to hang around at home as it gets later and later wondering if my food is going to arrive, getting more and more stressed (it doesn’t take much to get me stressed).

This all means that I need to go shopping.

With a few exceptions, I choose the shop and the timing with care. I choose half past nine in the evening – the roads are quiet and the shop is quiet.

I choose a supermarket which is neither too small (little choice) or too big (can’t find anything).

These choices reduce my stress level. Average time for my weekly shop – less than 15 minutes in and out.

So what does annoy me the most about shopping?

The “What, pay?” crowd – these are the people who pack all their shopping away and then look surprised when the cashier says “That’ll be 21 pounds 30, please.” After rooting around for what seems a lifetime they finally find a card and shove it in the slot. This is a financial transaction, people. Please be prepared to pay.
The “pay by cash” crowd – not the people who pay using actual money, but the people who extract all manner of small change from their wallet/purse/pockets, count it and start piling it up neatly on the counter. The cashier then has to count it again. To be honest, I feel a little guilty hating this, they’re just being careful/sensible, but Boy! it takes a while!
Products which magically move shelves overnight – I hear this is done to (a) make people look around so they see other products to spend their hard-earned on, and (b) deter shoplifters who tend to know exactly where the product is they wish to steal and don’t want to spend time searching in case security get suspicious. I understand the reasons, but I need to be in and out in 15 minutes! I don’t have time to spend on a hunt for my favourite snacks.
The “conveyor gap” crowd – these individuals start stacking their shopping at the far end of the conveyor belt, leaving a huge gap in the middle so that people behind them can’t start to unpack. Are they afraid their shopping’s going to get mixed up with he person’s in front? That’s what those plastic separators are for.
The “roughly 10 items or less” crowd – when I’m in the “10 items or less” queue, it means I just popped in for a couple of things and I could even be in a hurry! I can’t help counting the items in the baskets of people ahead of me. And man, do I get (quietly and internally) mad when I spot more than 10. Bastards.

Ah, shopping.

Categories: My Life Musings Tags: shopping woes

Oh deer

June 10, 2012 draliman 3 comments

“Oh deer” – no, not an embarrassing typo. We’re talking Bambi’s here (I understand that “Bambi” is a name and has no plural, and neither “Bambis” nor “Bambies” look right, so I hope you’ll excuse the use of the apostrophe in the plural).

From personal observation there has been a recent spate of attempted animal suicides in my area. Over the last couple of months every kind of furry mammal has flung itself at my car in an apparent attempt to end it all.

A Bambi, much like the suicide Bambi recently spotted on a main road in Cornwall.

Here’s a list of the most recent attempts:

2 cats (Truro and Redruth)
1 fox (A30 dual carriageway)
1 squirrel (Falmouth)
1 deer (A30 dual carriageway)
1 drunken youth (Truro)

All of these incidents took place after 10pm except for the squirrel – he only required a quick braking manoeuvre. The others elicited a last minute swerve.

Now, the fox and the squirrel I can understand – they’ve never traditionally balked at running into the road.

I always thought cats had more sense.

I’ve included “drunken youth” in the list because he was behaving like an animal. He jumped out into he road and stuck his finger up at me. Maybe he was trying to thumb a lift but mistakenly used “the finger” instead. As I passed him I saw him in the rear view mirror move further out into the road, finger still held high as I drove away. I was quite annoyed at such a random incident and briefly considered slamming the car into reverse and backing over him. Of course that would have been “wrong”, although, to be honest, prison food could only improve my diet.

That brings me to the Bambi. A deer in Cornwall? What? I saw it in the headlights at the last second as it calmly made its way down the verge and straight out into the slow lane. I performed a rather impressive 70mph swerve and saw it in the rear view mirror stare at me for a second before, again very calmly, it made its way back up the verge.

My Dad later told me that apparently there’s a “deer farm” in the vicinity (deer don’t generally roam free in Cornwall which is why I was so surprised to see one at all, let alone on the main road).

I’m not sure why one would “farm deer”, but I guess it must have been “deer harvest” time and one of them made a break for freedom.

Apparently hitting a deer at 70mph does serious damage to a car (and it probably doesn’t do the deer much good either) so it’s lucky I had an empty lane to swerve into.

Are these incidents all part of the rich tapestry of nature, or is there a multi-species suicide pact going on? Hopefully the former, otherwise it’s all just a bit depressing.