The Supermarket vs. Christmas

It is now almost as far away from Christmas as we can possibly be (other than actual Christmas or Boxing day, but who needs specifics?) and thus spells the end of what is both a fascinating, and intriguing ritual - Grocery Shopping .

Christmas is a time where time runs both fast and slow, a logic which is so warped, that if you followed it, theoretically this should cancel out, but it doesn’t! It begins when the shops crack out the Santa decorations in October, while all the organised people are dutifully getting their present shopping out of the way well in advance. (Statistics show that these account for about 0.00273 of our population) Then follows a forty-five day lull, known as November and Firsthalfofdecember, when almost simultaneously, the World wakes up, and as one makes their way to the stores.

All of a sudden one finds themselves amidst a supermarket (possibly where they applied for a job but didn’t get it. Grrr.) while the world and his wife mill about trying to decide whether or not they can find it in themselves to consume half a turkey.

This week instead of hand-picking beans one by one, you’re hand-picking cherries, while out of the corner of you can see a lady with much handbag giving you the evil eye, the whole time which she is edging ever closer. Little do you know, she is but a decoy! Just when you’re off your guard, “bang!”* her husbands hand reaches across and starts shoveling cherries across, looking sideways at you, subtly, yet firmly letting you know that this is their turf now.

Knowing when a cause is lost, it is time to make a move. Walking away from the hand-bag-lady’s triumphant sneer, in an attempt to locate your parents from within the throng, suddenly “whoosh!”**a twelve year old wannabe surfer cuts across you with his trolley, while his younger brother looks on with ardent admiration. (Why do these people always have a younger brother? It seems to go with the territory.) Then they just stare at you until you leave.

Having survived a few more such encounters, it is time to check out. Look around, all is good – every single que is relatively short, and it seems as though it will be at most a two minute wait before you can start loading onto the conveyor belt (which I think personally would be more interesting if they were mobius strips. Groceries traveling along, groceries being squashed - and around they all go again…anyway…)

Crap! We’ve forgotten something! As you stand and wait until one of the party returns with the missing article, suddenly EVERYONE in the store simultaneously concludes their shopping, and lines up. Good ‘ol Murphy’s Law.

It is only then that you realise that being-a-good-environmentalist bags have been left at home. D*mn.

Ah well. I guess its all worth it in the name of Christmas!

*because that’s totally the noise a hand makes while moving through air.
**I’m just enjoying being inaccurately onomatopoeic now.