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Roger Rabbits with |
She was a busybody….gawping into my supermarket trolley at the checkout. And then gawping at me. Gawp, gawp, gawp. The nerve of it!
Although there wasn’t much to gawp at. Just a six pack of IPA – India Pale Ale – screaming to be chugged, three chorizo sausages to be munched as I chugged, and skinny milk.
Hate that full milk that looks, tastes and smells like it has just come out of a cow.
The gawper continued gawping. And she was starting to irritate.
“I think I have all the food groups covered there,” I said to her in a smart-arsed, kick-her-cat tone. “What do you think?”
Mrs Fussy Pants didn’t think. She just rolled her eyes and huffed at me. Lovely!
Coke and lamingtons
So I gave her an industrial strength gawp back – and counted 10 by $10.80 ready-meal boxes of ‘Roast Lamb and Veggies’ in her supermarket trolley. And pink lamingtons, and two 2.25 litre bottles of Diet Coke.
And if Mrs Fussy Pants was going to get judgmental over my beer ration, didn’t she know that many frozen meals are high in sodium, added sugars and saturated fats? And didn’t she know some studies show a demonstrable link between frozen and ready-made meals and increased risk of obesity? And she may as well have smeared the lamingtons straight onto her thighs.
My turn for some eye rolling and huffing.
But what’s with this supermarket trolley gawping and shaming at the checkout anyway?
Is it just a time-killer while you wait your turn to exchange “how’s your day been so far” with the checkout operator? Are they programmed to say that or are they genuinely interested? How would they respond if you told them your dog has been run over, your wife has run off with your best friend, you’ve lost your retirement funds to a ponzi scheme? AND…you have developed a dreadful slice off the tee at golf.
A pro trolley gawper
And by their own admission, a doctor I know is a professional trolley gawper...
“Have you seen the crap people load into their supermarket trolleys?” Until Mrs Fussy Pants crashed my world, well no, I hadn’t. “No wonder there’s obesity,” said the doc with a little moral superiority. “High blood pressure and diabetes?” All that in the middle of a discussion about me perhaps adjusting my lifestyle. Less of my personal staples like IPA and chorizo.
I suggested to him that instead being the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, he could set up surgery at the checkout and remove “crap” products from the conveyor belt before they’re purchased, before the damage is done.
And they could adjust the alerts at the self-service to shame people.
“1842 calories in the bagging area.” Bleep, Bleep, Bleep! Flashing red light.
“Please place item back on the shelf.”
“Morbidly obese person buying chips and chocolate.” Bleep! Bleep! Bleep!
“Please wait for product police.”
You would be shamed mercilessly.
It actually starts before the checkout. Because before arriving in Heaven, Tauranga that is, I would swap small-talk with a Sikh supermarket assistant in Auckland. A very pleasant, enlightened and interesting man. And of course my friend from the Punjab was tee-total.
He almost kept me tee-total too, because Mr Singh had this almost divine ability to manifest from nowhere whenever I was exiting the chiller with beer. “OoooH!” he would say, smiling and admonishing at the same time. “But you buy beer already – three days ago. Not good!” Why did I let him fluster me? Why did he have me grasping for excuses and explanations. Anyhow I figured his shift patterns so I could conduct lightning raids on the chiller.
But even when you get your shopping of shame to the checkout there will be someone unloading canned, low sodium beans, lentils, sprouted wheat bread, plain instant oats, frozen berries, skinless chicken breasts, collagen peptides, bone broth and spiralised zucchini onto the conveyor belt before you. Don’t you hate them?
Where were we? Gawping. That’s right.
Reasons
Seems gawpers might not be the nosey, sanctimonious, judgmental people we believe them to be. More reasonable shoppers tell me they trolley gawp for a number of reasons.
- To check if they have forgotten anything.
- To check if they have missed specials.
- To check brand preferences.
- To check for new and untried products.
- Or 100 other reasons.
A couple of other annoying and inconsiderate supermarket behaviours …
- Deciding you don’t want or need shaved ham after all and so you dump it on the shelf with the biscuits, or laundry products, or wherever.
- Eating before paying.
- Unruly kids – it’s not a playground.
- Unloading 24 items in the express checkout.
- Leaving the checkout line to grab another item.
***While on supermarkets …. Isla is a sharp, observant, eight-year-old out of Katikati. Recently she noticed Countdown Bethlehem had transmogrified into Woolworths...again! Her mother explained the three-year, $400-million rebranding.
But the self-service checkout machines didn’t get the email. Because when Isla was leaving ‘Woolworths’, the machine said: “Thank you for shopping Countdown!” It wasn’t lost on Isla.
