While it’s fresh in my head, I must relate my latest humiliating experience at a supermarket in town.
The old adage that the customer is always right mustn’t exist any more – more like the customer is always to be pitied.
I had filled my trolley that day as swiftly as possible, as there was a parent-teacher meeting at school to get to with Fionnuala.
The message was that no-one was to be late – ensure a seamless transition… show respect for other parents… teachers are giving up their precious time etc.
None of this was a problem, and the meeting wasn’t going to be a worry either, as Fiadh was a model student – I would attend and enjoy the pat on the back that I, in part, deserved – but in the supermarket, I got caught up browsing the special offers, never intending to buy, merely amusing myself at the wares: a power washer beside children’s underwear; a bird table next to a luminous silicone spatula; a watercolour painting kit above an extra-large wetsuit.
I found it mesmerising, the studied haphazardness.
They couldn’t have made it more random if they had sat down for a morning with a focus group and a tombola, and knowing how ingenious big stores are at flogging you stuff – how many of us go into Tesco for a pencil case and pancakes and come out with two overflowing bags of goods you didn’t need – I could only assume that it was deliberate.
It was designed to baffle, amuse and titillate, drawing you along with your trolley, daring you to buy that set of miniature screwdrivers you never knew you desired. Buy two of them actually, in case you lose one. Wait, it’s three for two? Buy three!
Anyway, I digress. The problem came after that, at the till. They have a particular queueing system at this supermarket that the vast majority of shoppers usually adhere to, but is open to abuse.
Everyone waits in line in the aisle beside the tills and you filter over to whichever one looks most likely to be quickest.
Sounds fine, but some folk come up the bottom aisle and straight to the till beside that, or some blunder along the front and either don’t see the queue or ignore it, and set their shopping on the first conveyor belt they see.
This was precisely what was happening, as I watched with increasing anxiety.
The elderly man in front of me was either unaware or too shy to step in and set the queue-jumpers straight, and I was too polite to step in front of him, but as my mood began to darken, I decided to take matters into my own hands.
Three tills were overflowing and no amount of pleading looks to the cashiers engendered the magic “Till number four is now opening” on the tannoy, so I wheeled up and set my stuff out there anyway – gambling that they were bound to open it.
Nothing happened for ages, and the cashiers were now avoiding my increasingly desperate attempts at eye contact, until eventually a manager appeared and I called him over and asked if I could I get my shopping through.
He was calm, but firm, explaining that he had no-one for that till and it was hard to stop people jumping the queue.
I suggested he jump on himself, and he said he couldn’t – but he would help me load my massive weekly shop back in my trolley and I could go to another till.
I said no, I’ll wait.
He walked off. People were now glancing over. Then a man peeked out of the office and back in again and the tannoy delivered the magic words “Till number four is now opening”, and I smiled as other shoppers quickly fell into line behind me.
That was until I saw the manager speaking into his headset as he looked towards me, a long cavernous look, and the tannoy sounded again.
“Till number four is now closing.”
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