Supermarket Armageddon

My problem: whether to cook half of a chilli, because I don’t have all the ingredients, or risk losing my life at the nearest supermarket. I would rather eat a half made chilli. However in this case I have little choice but to face almost certain death because I have guests coming round for dinner and I have little else to offer them; other than a couple of sandwiches. So I set off at 7:00 am expecting to be back within half an hour, oh how I was wrong.

I drove to the supermarket, deciding it would save time, and found a packed car park with not enough space for even an ant to move.

I began to circulate around the car park along with many other cars looking for a space; this soon turned into a battle and unfortunately I missed out on several spaces because I have little experience in these events. Deciding it would be best to play it safe I went to the back of the car park and pulled into a parking slot- still almost being rammed by some mad woman trying to steal my space even when there were others that were empty. I got out of my car and looked towards the supermarket… where was it? I began walking in the direction that I believed it to be in and after five minutes it came into view.

After a life threatening half kilometre walk to the front of the store I was greeted with an empty trolley park, not wanting to risk venturing into the car park again I decided to wait for a few to arrive. Amazingly some arrived in about ten minutes- which must be a record- and I managed to grab one over the pushing and shoving of screaming women with millions of children. I often wonder why people need to bring their kids shopping, it’s not like they have any input in what goes in the trolley, and all you can hear is women shouting at children that they can’t have their favourite brand of corn flakes. It must be some kind of breeding ground for frenzied shoppers, or something of the sort.

Entering through the sliding doors I began my journey, the place was heaving and I felt a feeling of dismay when I saw all the hundreds of people under one roof. It felt claustrophobic but I gritted my teeth and went into the mass of people. The first thing on my list was the mince meat, so I headed off to the meat section which was shown by a sign hanging from the ceiling.

I only saw the sign because I was unfortunate enough to bang my head against it as I was wondering aimlessly looking for anything remotely like food. Why do supermarkets sell clothes, games and many other items other than food? It doesn’t work out, especially if you’re me and you’re wondering around the lingerie section looking for your minced meat.

When I reached the meat section, which was contained on about four aisles, I went in search of the minced meat, whilst being rammed by trolleys in very uncomfortable areas. Luckily the first aisle I came to held mince meat on it although I could choose from lamb, turkey, beef, buffalo and llama mince I found the beef and put it into my trolley. I felt a feeling of success when it touched the coldness of the metal; I had put my first item in it. That feeling was soon totally wiped out as I realised I still had two items left to find.

So off I plunged again into the dark wilderness of the supermarket. The next item on my list was the pepper. I only wanted one as my recipe used 1 red one. I eventually found the section where the peppers were, after another embarrassing moment in the lingerie area. But when I found the peppers they were all packed into one bag. I only wanted 1 pepper so I wandered what to do, the only way was to take the red pepper out of its bag and place it in one of those clear bags that hang on a roll in-between shelves. Again I encountered another problem; there were no bags left. I looked on both sides of my aisle but found none.

Deciding not to risk getting lost and going out to other aisles I popped the pepper in the bottom of my trolley and carried on.

Now, all I needed was my red kidney beans… oh no. Have you ever tried searching for a needle in a haystack? I say now it’s not pretty. It took me five minutes or more to find the area with all the tins in, it must have taken up at least twenty aisles each one rammed with produce of the same kind: frankfurters, sweetcorn, chopped tomatoes and many more. I began my search all the while being bombarded with trolleys and being hit by screaming kids. All I could see was the same produce though. The places on the shelves that were obscured from my view most likely contained the same tins as the rest of the aisle. Why, I ask now do you have so much choice? Who needs all this choice, nowadays you have sweetcorn; and then you have sweetcorn and again more sweetcorn. It’s all the same stuff but just put in different tins, which I believe to be totally pointless. Also it keeps women looking at the hundreds of tins (which contain the same stuff) for hours, deciding what to buy when it’s all the same anyway!

Now I’m ready to give up, but fortunately I see a shop assistant amongst the crowds of people. Walking over to him, he sees me but tries to imagine I’m not there.

“Excuse me, where are the red kidney beans,” I ask.

He looks at me with a blank face, gawping like a fish, so I ask again.

“I don’t know what they are, do you mean baked beans?” He replied.

Getting quite annoyed I told him to screw himself and I walked away. I knew better than to ask for senior management as it would have resulted in more blank looks and quite frankly I would have been wasting my time.

Deciding to leave now, before my guests arrived I headed towards the checkout. I had noticed along my journey that lines of people were in the middle of the store, now I realised what it was… the queue. I joined the shortest one which was at least a third of the store away from the checkout. Plain sailing from here, I thought, but how I was wrong. After a half hour wait I was ready to pay.

“Your cards rejected love,” Said the cashier rather too enthusiastically. I told her to try again and on the fourth time the card was accepted. I left in a hurry trying to escape the crowds still, dumping my trolley on the way out. I yet again traversed the car park to get to my car and yet again was hit by cars and trolleys.

Finally I was in my car staring wildly at the clock; it was 11:30 and it had taken me four and a half hours to get two of the three items I needed. This is unbelievable how on Earth can it take that long?