Power to the shoppers and their shopping habits

Recently, I wrote a short play-ette in my A. Playwright's Rambling blog, focusing on the encounter of two women shopping for lipstick. Although it was exaggerated for drama and content, it was based on a real-life encounter as are many of my "Scenes from Real Life" Life experiences lend themselves as fodder for drama.

For whatever reason, shopping carts or maybe it extends to anything with wheels, seem to bring out the inner beast in some people. Perhaps it's a skewed feeling of power in that they control a vehicle be it a means to hold food items, which could in theory give them muscle over other shoppers. This is particularly noticeable when lining up at the cash to pay. During a big sale at a supermarket, I watched two females (but it just as easily could have been males) actually sling verbal accusations at each other focusing on who was went before while waiting to pay. I mean, really.

Related to this is the quest for parking place and the need to be close to a mall entrance. Shoppers for whatever reason - laziness springs to mind - will drive around and around in tight groups, one car behind the other, ready to spring into action lest a car be spotted pulling out of a space near the door. As a shopper I've been followed by a lineup of ve-hi-cles while walking to retrieve my car. Usually, it's located two rows over from where I'm searching and upon arrival at my destination, the cars are already waiting for my departure. What's the difference if you have to walk a few feet more is my philosophy.

Thinking further perhaps it goes back to our basic survival instinct in that we feel the necessity to exend our superiority and strength in social situations. A shopping cart gives the customer control be it in a limited fashion, over her/his immediate environment. Then again, a parking spot is a parking spot is...unless of course it's 20 below zero in a snow storm. Then it's every man or woman for themselves.

Something corny is at hand

Fresh corn on the cob has arrived in local supermarkets. This in itself is an anticipated event since we all - at least many of us anyway - enjoy when teeth-meets-corn kernels. Nothing like a hot boiled, crunchy corn on the cob accompanied by your grease-of-choice dripping down the sides.

The eating side of corn is great but what's not agreeable is the way supposedly civilized people act in front of the corn display. Surpermarkets usually provide an empty bin in which to toss discarded ears of corn (that sounds so barbaric!) but for whatever reason - laziness springs to mind - corn lovers prefer to drop corn leaves and rejected cobs directly on to the floor. This in itself is bad enough but the act of selecting corn turns otherwise "normal" surpermarket shoppers into discourteous oafs. In order to get at what they believe to be the primo corn, hips become shoving weapons as do flaying arms that seek out cobs located at the very bottom of the corn display. It's also somewhat disturbing, at least to me, how people seek only the perfect, blemish-less cobs with no signs of insects or color imperfection, while a large portion of the world goes starving.

I like the multi-colored corn and take it with a dish of salt and some low-fat margarine, although purists would suggest that only butter would do. Although there are special corn-eating tools available, we eat ours with our hands and the help of napkins - lots of napkins that disintegrate almost immediately. Still, we have to watch our manners...

Also on sale this week are the giant cherries with no empty containers provided for discarded cherry pits. Watched a cherry shopper/taster this week take a hand full of cherries in his hand and slowly but methodically go through them while walking around the produce dept., spitting out the pits on to the floor as he walked. Nothing like slipping on pits and corn leaves to make an unforgettable shopping experience.

To complete my shopping experience, the produce spray has gone amok. Where only fresh vegetables are normally sprayed (and sprayed and...), it now provides a face wash for unsuspecting shoppers and of course, no means in which to dry off. Nothing like shopping with a wet face and makeup dripping off.  Gotta love the experience!

OTOH and just in case one needs a one-on-one instruction, here's crunch-by-crunch instructions on how to best eat corn: http://www.wikihow.com/Eat-Corn-on-the-Cob

Personal poll out of curiousity:

- how do you prepare your corn?
a) barbeque b) boiled c)microwaved

- how do you eat your corn?
a) as is - no butter et al
b) lots of butter
c) margarine and/or other grease?

- how many corns can you eat?
1...2...more?

What happened to supermarket manners and courtesy?

For whatever reason, shopping at the supermarket has become an excursion in bad manners, IMHO. Case in point: yesterday while waiting to check out grocery items in a line, the woman in front decided that she needed a pack of cigarettes - had to have those cigarettes right there and then. She asked the check out cashier for a pack, after which the cashier directed her to counter where the cigarettes were available. However, the cigarette-craving-female (CCF) expected the cashier to leave her cash and get them for her! After being informed that the CCF would have to go buy them herself, the woman asked the cashier and the line-up of shoppers one of whom was me, to wait until she went to buy a pack.

"I don't think so!" I told Ms CCF.

"But it will only take a minute!" she responded, starting to move out of the line in quest of her cigarettes.

"Why don't you wait and buy your cigarettes after you check out your items?" I told her, quite miffed at that point.

The cashier for her part, realizing that I was somewhat PO'd, jumped in and told the woman that if she chose to go buy her cigarettes, then she would check out my items first. Internally, I smiled. After a five second pause while the CCF considered her options, she left her items in pursuit of her pack of cigarettes. Meanwhile, the cashier checked out my items first until Ms CCF returned to her place in front of me, presumably happier for having a pack of cigarettes in her purse.

Then there's the people who feel they are entitled to taste cherries - note the plural form used here - as they bag them. There are no signs visible anywhere offering free cherries and/or taste-testing, people! One pays before tasting! A few are dropped in the plastic bags and the remainder of the cherries are stuffed into mouths, as cherry juice drips down the side of their faces. These are the same people who also spit their cherry pits to the ground or back on the cherry display. Nothing more disgusting than coming accross or finding a saliva ridden cherry pit during hand picking. Blech!

Also falling into this category are shoppers who strip the leaves off fresh corns and throw them on to the ground. Also worthy of mention are veggie choosers who press tomatoes and other fragile veggies like peaches, nectarines et al, to the point of leaving indented finger marks. Don't we all just love to eat fruit with somebody else's fingers on the surface? Again - blech!

Or how about people who remove the enclosure tabs inside orange juice containers for whatever reason and then replace back into the refrigerator display.

Not to be overlooked are shoppers who take the shopping carts to their cars without replacing them in the allotted area, allowing the shopping cart wheels to roll on to fenders.

In any case and to return to Ms Cigarette Craving Woman, last time I spotted her as I was pulling out of the parking lot, she was puffing away while emptying the shopping cart. Talk about money going up in smoke. Really.

Supermarkets - of water sprays in produce department and bad shopping etiquette

Yesterday I did a quick run-in to our local supermarket for a few items. As is my habit, visited the vegetable produce section for the makings of a salad and was in the process of picking out a lettuce towards the back of the display when a spray -actually more like a deluge - of water descended from the automated spray system above. My whole arm was wet- more than wet - and heaven forbid the supermarket(s) should provide paper towels or something for customers to dry themselves. This leads me to question the sanity altogether of installing water sprays for vegetables. Presumably, the idea behind it is to keep the vegetables fresh and visually appealing. The sprays are obviously on a timer system and unfortunately customers aren't aware of when their arms will be drenched. Actually, more than arms get wet including the face, depending on the re-bound of water on the product.

Perhaps a sign should be posted, something to the effect:

"Attention shoppers! Our system is timed to spray water every 10 minutes. The next spray will occur in blank minutes. Please stand back to avoid getting wet."

There's nothing like picking up a soaked veggie, shaking it in an attempt to rid it of excess liquid, which is an exercise in futility anyway, and transferring it into a cloth bag.

Another thing that bothers me are shoppers who for whatever reason, taste the fruit and then some, during the selection process. I've seen people standing in front of the cherry or grape or any pick-your-own display and stuffing their mouths while choosing the best fruit. These same shoppers do not inform the check-out cashiers that they have consumed fruit without paying for it. Who pays for this? You and I of course!

I've also seen shoppers actually open sealed boxes, take out an item, examine it and replace it back in the box. The absolute worst, though, was the person who opened a sour cream container, stuck in a pinky finger to taste it and replace the container back on the shelf.

Speaking of check-out cashiers, one of my biggest beefs are people who try to use the 8-items-or-less check out line when they have a shopping cart full of groceries. Yesterday for example, while waiting to pay for my few groceries, a woman with a cart filled to capacity was told by the cashier to go to the regular cash.

"The lines are sooo long," the woman responded and pointed to the long line-ups of shoppers, in the way of attempting to get the cashier to relent. After an unsuccessful period of whining that went on for a minute or so and highly indignant, the shopper whipped her shopping cart out of 8-items line up and joined the rest at the end of an even longer line up in the time she was pleading her case. No sooner had she disappeared than another customer tried the same plea without success.

Recently, somebody ran over my foot with a shopping cart while looking over a shelf, without even so much as an apology.

"You ran over my foot," I informed her lifting my leg in pain, expecting her to be contrite and appologetic. Looking down at my leg, she uttered "oh" and blamed it on a faulty shopping cart. Shopping at the supermarket just ain't what it used to be, then again, what is?

The line up - Brits don't like it

Love those surveys! Yet another one out of Britain, a country that appears to enjoy doing surveys scientific and other-wise, focusing on an act we all do and yet many of us despise doing it. A busy day at the supermarket is a common place where people of all ages gather in large numbers while doing it. The "it" in this case is having to wait in line to pay or do anything, actually.

According to the survey conducted on-line, the average British adult is able to line up for 10 minutes and 42 seconds before expressing their frustration. How, one wonders, did they calculate that 42 seconds but I digress. It's sort-of surprising given the Brits tolerance for things. The most disliked line ups were - surprise - at the supermarkets in addition to the post office and airport check-in and security.

People in the 55 years of age and over category become restless 3 minutes before younger people, however, those 35 years of age and under were more likely to take their frustration out on whoever happens to be handy at that time. This could mean, one presumes, getting verbally nasty. Seems what really aggravates those surveyed is when people dawdle. This is logical if, for example, a cashier and customer discuss and plan social events while the line grows and grows, or when the person in front has a conversation on her/his cell phone and loses track of time, or when people decide to get rid of all that heavy, pesky change... Ask me about it! But again I digress.

To avoid having to wait in line, most Brits prefer to pay their bills on-line, something that is popular with people living in North America and most likely all over the planet.

The on-line poll of 2,006 adults found that one in five people do their shopping at night to avoid the lines. It would be interesting if somebody would conduct a similar poll to see how people living in other countries feel about lining up. Would, for example, culture play a part in how people would react? Weather conditions? So how do people reading this feel about lining up?

Doggone shoplifter gets the bone

It's the holiday story that is making everyone smile.

There are your run-of-the-mill stories about people shoplifting items of supermarket shelves but this one can definitely be categorized as "different" or "daring" or even dog-gone nervy!

So a dog casually enters the Smith's Food and Drug supermarket in Murray, Utah. The dog, who appears to be a german shepherd, waits for the store's doors to open, strolls in with a determined gait and appears to know exactly where she/he wants to go. The object of this canine theft is the pet supply aisle 16 and a surveillance video caught the entire heist of a rawhide bone worth $2.79.

When confronted by store manager, Roger Adamson and ordered to "drop it!" the perp didn't bat an eyelash and made a quick exit out of the front door. The entire heist was caught on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anDvU530g2o

This begs the question as to why the perp... that is to say canine thief, chose this particular supermarket and whether he had cased the store earlier. More interesting, will the furry thief return for some dog toys and move up to bags of kibbles?

There is no information provided as to whether the thief has a record and nobody has phoned in any tips to help apprehend the perp...canine.