‘Hello there,
how are you today?’ beams the interest feigning teenager in their oversized,
plum coloured fleece. If ever there was a time that you wish a teenager would
just grunt at you instead of trying to engage you in conversation, it’s at the
checkout at Sainsbury’s. For reasons unknown to the entire population of the
British Isles, the bosses at Sainsbury’s and other leading supermarkets, have
decided that the thing to really make the much desired end to your shopping
trip is for the checkout staff to make awkward shopping related small talk with
you, despite the fact that you are trying to pack your shopping whilst keeping
an eye on your child who has descended to the three joined together chairs that
no-one really needs or ever sits on and you clearly just want to go home.
Whilst you are frantically trying to open the skin thin shopping bags with your
freshly licked fingers and the wittering till operative is throwing your
shopping at you at the speed of light, it is hard to be enthusiastic about comments
like ‘Ooh I bought some of these last week’ and ‘I think that must be a new
range’. So at this point I climb onto the conveyor belt, grab them by the scruff
of their neck and bellow ‘JUST GIVE ME MY FUCKING SHOPPING YOU LITTLE TURD’ at
the top of my voice. Well alright, not really but that’s the scenario that goes
around in my head. ‘Wow, that’s a really good deal!’ ‘HOW WOULD YOU KNOW, YOUR
MUM STILL BUYS ALL YOUR FUCKING SHOPPING!’. Tempting but I decide to stick to a
typically British ‘yes it is, isn’t it’.
I don’t blame
the kids at the checkout though, it’s clearly the management that have put them
up to this humiliation. One thing I have learnt is that you never, ever under
any circumstances respond to their original question with ‘I’m fine thanks, how
are you?’ because they will tell you and in great detail. And even though you
asked them the question, you didn’t really want an answer and you certainly
didn’t want to know that they are really tired because they haven’t had their
break yet. I know this might sound harsh but I genuinely believe that checkout
staff should only speak if they are spoken to. ‘Hello’ is fine. ‘Do you want
some help packing’ is acceptable. ‘Would you like some bags?’ is tempting us to
answer ‘No, I’ll just balance it all on my fucking head’ but still a fairly
reasonable question. Anything more than that is unnecessary.
Although I’ve
pointed the finger at the kids for having awkward conversations, it’s generally
the older members of staff who have the most inappropriate ones. There is
something about a customer being pregnant that suddenly makes these middle aged
women think they can be as rude or as personal as they like. When I was
pregnant with my second child I was asked by a particularly rotund lady how far gone I was (pregnancy wise
obviously, I wasn’t pissed), I proudly replied that I was 4 1/2 months gone.
This was greeted with a cackle that the green, Emu-hating bloater Grotbags would have been
proud of and the comment ‘my daughter is 7 months gone and nowhere near as big
as you, you’d hardly know she was pregnant!’ I resisted pointing out to her that
if her daughter was as obese as she is then no, you probably wouldn’t be able
to tell if she was pregnant or not. I didn’t because presumably she would have
been offended by a comment about her size and I’m not a rude, mouthy cow. Nor
am I insensitive like the woman who laughed loudly at me when I was heavily
pregnant and couldn’t reach the food at the bottom of my trolley causing me to
feel slightly emotional, so politely asked if she could get someone to help me.
I’ve remembered her face though in case she ever steps out in front of my
car...
My local Tesco
at that time employed another right old charmer. This particular lady asked me
every other day when my baby was due and when I told her she would tell me that
her pregnant sister was due 5 days after that. We had the same conversation for
about 4 months. When I’d had my son I wandered down to Tesco with him a few
days later to stock up on nappies and any legal products containing caffeine
that I could get my hands on. I approached this particular lady whilst carrying
Finlay sleeping soundly in his car seat, thinking in the way that new mothers
self absorbingly do, that she’ll be really pleased to see I’ve had him. ‘Hello’
she said ‘when is your baby due?’
‘Um..sorry’
‘When is your
baby due?’
‘What, this
baby here?’
‘Oh, you’ve
had it. What is it?’
I looked down
at Finlay in his blue coat, blue hat, covered by his blue blanket. ‘Well it’s a
boy’
‘Oh. My sister
is due soon. That’s £9.86 please’
Why spend all
those weeks asking me when my baby is due if you then couldn’t give a shit when
it does arrive! A few weeks later the very same lady asked me if I was pregnant
again. I said no, of course not, she then replied ‘Oh right, yes I look quite
fat in certain outfits too’. I guess I’ll put back these bars of chocolate
then...These kind of discussions make me wonder why management are encouraging the staff to make conversation when they clearly aren’t capable of doing so. My friend was once told by a checkout operative that she looked like ‘old whatsername from Eastenders.....Sonia!’ No-one ever wants to hear that! Another friend was informed by some bitter old crone that she was lucky that she could afford all these lovely vegetables, she certainly couldn’t afford them herself, she could barely afford to feed her dog. My friend brilliantly suggested that she had it shot, then she could get herself a salad. This particular checkout hag has rattled my cage on a few occasions though, I’ve learnt not to make eye contact with her now or she will tell you all about why her hand is bandaged or some dreary tale about her probably just as annoying daughter who I’ve never met therefore have no real interest in.
I try to stick
to using the self service checkouts as much as I can now, although admittedly I
did find myself calling one of them a cocksucker the other day. ‘Please place
your item in the bagging area’ says the unrealistically posh voice as you are
trying desperately to prize one of their bags open before they call for
assistance, thus forcing you to interact with one of the aforementioned life
draining biddies you have been avoiding, who now comes over to tell you that you haven’t
put it in the bag quick enough. I KNOW! But you’ve put 15,000 bags in a pile
here and they are stuck together by a force as yet unknown to man and I can’t
get them apart in time!
She then looks
in your basket ‘Ooh that looks nice’. Oh piss off...
