Super Market Dilemma

Supermarkets – A magical land where I enter to buy JUST one carton of juice but hours later find myself pushing a trolley of goods, wondering how I got caught up in the deadly trap.

It’s like a Venus flytrap for humans. It gives us a sweet offering only to suck us into an endless spiral of ‘Do I need this right now or do I have enough at home?’

Venus Flytrap

I was at the supermarket, the other day, carrying a trolley full of snacks to take back home. This time, though, it was not the case of me being sucked in. I had planned the visit since I knew I had to stay up a few nights for some work and it gets really annoying to cook something in the middle of the night. Even waiting for the leftover from the refrigerator to heat up in the microwave seems like a drag.

Anyway, so I was at the supermarket with my trolley and I kept it on the side of the aisle so that there was enough space for other people to walk by as I looked at the items on the shelf.

Aisle to Aisle

I was generally shifting my gaze from one product to another when it fell on a Kellogg’s breakfast cereal and I stopped. I don’t remember exactly what the flavour was but I do remember thinking, ‘Why does this flavour exist? Who even eats this?’

It was kept at the bottom shelf so I was crouching down to inspect it, when I heard something stir inside my trolley.

I quickly got up, half expecting a mouse in my cart, which could entitle me to free products from the mart in exchange for my silence. But, alas, it was not so.

Some lady had picked up a pack of Oreo biscuit from my trolley and was inspecting it.

Twist, Lick, Dunk

I was ready to answer her question about where to find them but instead of that she just took my biscuit and started walking away. Well, not my biscuit, yet, but I had carefully chosen it among the hundreds of others.

I could almost hear them speak out to me, ‘please save us. We want to enter your digestive tract, not hers.’

‘Excuse me,’ I said.

‘Yes?’ she looked at me like I had knocked on her home door in the middle of the night.

‘Those are mine.’

‘No they aren’t.’

‘They were kept in my cart,’ I pointed to the cart she had just taken the biscuits from.

‘Oh, I thought it was unmanned,’ she said. Obviously, anybody with common sense would assume that she was going to return it but instead she continued, ‘but I already picked it thinking it to be an unmanned cart, so, I guess you have to get another one. There isn’t any rule which says I have to give it back to you.’

I know people shouldn’t be judged quickly but boy, was this woman thick-skulled. As much as all the muscles in my body were telling me to, I did not want to head-butt a lady in the middle of the supermarket so I let her go. And well, she was right – there was no rule to it.

But, I really think that there should be! Today a packet of Oreo, tomorrow the whole trolley. When will this madness end?!

In the end she got away with the biscuit and I got away with not going to prison for assaulting a middle-aged woman in the supermarket. So, it worked out fine, I guess.

On a positive note, I did get the last laugh. During check out, she joined the line before me but as soon as I reached to check out, they opened a new line, so I got to go first in that and she remained standing at the back of the other! In her face!

If you have faced a similar situation, pray tell how you dealt with it. Till then, from one writer to another, WRITE ON!