Overreaction

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So, I made a shopping list this morning. Our lists are things of great beauty. Well, okay, not that. But our lists are carefully thought out. We (or one of us, if the other is at work, as today) sit down, look at shift patterns, work out when we’ll be in / out, flick through our (numerous) cookery books, select recipes. Having done so each item is popped onto the list so we don’t buy stuff we don’t need, and do buy what’s required. The list also has the recipe / day list on it. Last time we went (I think it was last time) we got to the shop with only just enough time to shop and discovered I’d left the list at home. There was a fair bit of swearing at myself.

Today, having checked and discovered that the fishmonger is shut on Sundays, the whole foods store is closed on Sundays, the bakers is closed on Sundays, indeed the only thing reliably open on Sundays is the Awesome “Gardener’s Patch”. So guiltily I decided to do the shop at Sainsbury’s. I hate shopping at supermarkets now.

I feel really guilty anyhow, then everything’s wrapped in plastic, the range is crap compared to the stores we normally shop in (where’s the fresh chard? why are there 800 varieties of frozen peas but no interesting frozen veg*). Ethical foods are stuck in the miniature ethical food ghetto, and environmentally friendly detergents are, well… it’s Ecover, Method or nothing.

Anyhow, I carefully (given the last attempt) put the list with my phone, because I knew I’d not leave without my phone. I picked up the phone, the list, money, shopping bags. Got in the car. Drove to the shop. I arrive perfectly at opening time. There are maybe 10 people in the supermarket – relative bliss. I fish in my pocket. No list. No list in the car, not in my hoodie pocket. Not on the floor between the car and the shop. I swear, a lot. I drive home. I look around the house, upstairs, everywhere I’ve been since well before making the list. It’s gone. I fish through the bin *and* the recycling. No list.

So then I swear a lot at myself, re-make the list and head back to the now packed supermarket where I find that as usual Sainsbury’s have their usual “never knowingly fully stocked” approach to things. So that sucked.

Also, by this point I was hungry (bad) and kept picking up ‘oh, we should stock up on this’ items because I’m in Sainsburys, and we don’t often go to Sainsburys and there are “stock” things that we buy in pseudo bulk from there.

It was not a cheap shopping trip.

It also sucked because I must admit I’m a wee bit stressed about the essay I’m rewriting, and my dissertation. And to top it off the dinky little Viewsonic VMP74 media player that has been serving us very well decided today to die. It powers up, passes it’s little self-test, sits for a few minutes working and then dies. Splut. So I’ve ‘mailed Scan about it, let’s wait and see how their warranty department deals. It’s just over 1 year old, but honestly? Even a crappy cheap piece of consumer electronics should last a year. Especially since it spent until November in a box.

Anyhow, I’ve regained my sanity now, and am winding down and chilling out. Essay later, that’s the plan.

* Seriously, local Sainsburys, 2 cabinets *full* of frozen peas.

KateWE

Kate's a human mostly built out of spite and overcoming transphobia-racism-and-other-bullshit. Although increasingly right-wing bigots would say otherwise. So she's either a human or a lizard in disguise sent to destroy all of humanity. Either way, it's all good.