Flabbergasted

I did some grocery shopping today. I needed a few things; bread, milk, fruit, and some cold meat. The usual things. So, I headed down to my local grocery shop, and as it happens, the place was entirely empty. Bearing in mind that 1.30PM on a Wednesday typically isn’t the most busy time for grocery shopping, I was still a little surprised to see that I was perhaps the only customer in the entire building.

So, I thought to myself, this is going to be easy. You see, I don’t dwell in shops. Especially grocery shops. It’s food. You buy it, you cook it, you eat it. There’s no aspect of grocery shopping that I would consider to be … enjoyable. On occasion, when I’m feeling particularly inventive, I do take an interest in reading the labels of products which I’ve not purchased previously to see what kind of dish I can create. That’s about the extent of interest I have in grocery shopping. It’s mundane. Which is why I prefer to spend as little time as possible doing it. I can shop for myself for a week, week and a half, depending on the rotation, in about 30 minutes — or less. What I mean by that is: I can leave my house, drive to the shop, find a park, do my shopping, carry it to the car, leave the shopping centre, drive home, and be back before my washing finishes, for example. That takes about half an hour. On a normal day.

So, you can imagine why I was somewhat excited to be the only customer in the entire store. I was going to try and break my record. Oh, how wrong I was.

You see, after I’d done my shopping, collecting almost everything into a hand basket and the milk in my other hand, I walked quickly and efficiently to the checkout, where I came upon someone else just finishing putting up their groceries onto the conveyor belt. Oh well I thought, at least she’s nearly finished.

Nope. Oh, sure, she’d put all her groceries up onto the conveyor belt. They’d nearly all been scanned through. She was preparing to pay for them after the total was announced to her. But no, it couldn’t be that simple. She took out her purse and grabbed for her card. It wasn’t there. She unfolded every fold, zipped open every zip, and flipped every flap. There was no EFTPOS card. She put down her purse, muttering to herself, and proceeded to rummage in her giant handbag. She rummaged a little more, performing the same ritual as before: unfolding every fold, unzipping every zip, and flipping every flap. There was no card. At this point, about two or three minutes had passed. Fair enough. I can’t say I’ve never lost anything.

So, she decides the best course of action is to pull things out of her handbag. Out come tissues, painkillers, lipsticks, lip balms, hair clips, hair ties, combs, brushes, a random assortment of papers and plastic slips and other miscellaneous items. There is no card. She mutters more loudly now, talking about how she had it this morning, and is so worried she might have lost it. Yeah, well, that seems pretty obvious now, doesn’t it? But, what does she do next? She doesn’t give up. She unfolds every piece of paper, opens everything that can be opened, unzipped, unflapped, and undone. She does this three or four times, each time with more haste and less sense.

Now, I’m normally pretty patient, but by this point in time, I’ve probably been waiting about seven or eight minutes. This isn’t good. The entire store is empty, remember. I just happened to get the only checkout just after this crazy woman got it. I’m thinking nasty things about her in my head; thinking she’s an old fuddy-duddy, stresses out way too much, and should just get out of the way while she’s searching so I can pay for my measly portion of products and get the fuck home.

My thoughts are interrupted when she says, finally, after about ten minutes or so: “Oh, I guess I’ll just pay in cash. But I really wanted to use my card.”

What the fuck?!