Supermarkets at month end are not for the faint hearted

THE first mistake was going grocery shopping on Saturday morning. The second was going grocery shopping at the end of the month, the day after pay day and on a long weekend.

But we all need to eat and with more month left at the end of my money, it was go shopping now, or starve.

Arriving at the supermarket, it appeared that everybody in Pinetown and surrounds had the same idea. Many were clutching the inserts from the Highway Mail detailing the month-end specials and there was a queue for trolleys which had run out. But patience came in to play, lured by the aim of saving a few Rands.

Actually, shopping was quite difficult. I sallied forth with my habitual trolley, the one with a wheel intent on going in the opposite direction to its brothers (why does this trolley always wait for me, and at different supermarkets too?), but I got no further than a few steps when I had to stop and wait for a man, being pernickety about vegetables, to move out the way. But he didn’t move and the more I asked to be excused, the more he inspected cabbage leaves (for snails?) squeezed the avos for ripeness, and chose green beans one by one. All the while his trolley was blocking the easiest entrance to the fruit and veg. The only alternative was to go around but everybody had the same idea to play dodgems, so the deep breathing temper control exercises came in to play and were, mostly, successful.

The queues were so long that they extended way down the aisles and reaching certain shelves required the bulldozer-like characteristics of Bismarck du Plessis, although with an apologetic smile plastered on my face.

Then it was time to get to the checkout but first another survival course recce around the shop was required to find the shortest queue. That’s another thing about supermarkets – the wonky trolley and the checkout lady that I chose are in cahoots, because it seems the moment I join the line is a signal to her to cash up or become involved in some other time-wasting activity, simply to add to the irritation factor. I had prepared for this skirmish with capitalism, so had girded my loins in comfortable denim and chosen sensible shoes, ready for the long wait to the check out. And what I witnessed from this vantage point was fascinating and I’m sure an anthropologist would find valuable insights for a thesis on the shopping habits of the average Pinetownian, or rather the queue jumping tactics of some clever, impatient people.

Do you know, the way to make sure you choose the shortest, quickest queue is to hedge your bets? This requires two people and two trolleys or baskets on wheels. Husband joins queue one while wife parks her trolley containing a few items in queue two in the space left by polite people where the queue intersects with the passageway in front of the tills. Queue jumping. She then joins her husband to watch the hapless hordes dutifully push her trolley forward. Which ever trolley reaches the check out first is the winner and the couple jumps the queue or remains where they are, wife retrieving her groceries from the losing line.

Then there’s the teenager in the queue with a few items in a basket. Along comes dad with an almost empty trolley and shoves its nose in the space behind his son. He and his daughter then go shopping, returning every few minutes to add more and more items to the trolley to the annoyance of people who thought they had chosen a queue with few laden trolleys.

It was entertaining and educational and passed the time with some amusement, but there was this nagging feeling that in certain situations consideration for one’s fellow man is sadly lacking, and grocery shopping and supermarket queues rank up there with the best of them.