The trouble with Saturday shopping.......

Well I got up early this morning for my fortnightly shop at Tesco. I have to go very early on a Saturday because I cannot park near my house if I move the car in the week because of commuter parking. I am also unable to lift or carry heavy shopping from the car with osteo-arthritis. Anyway, I always aim to be there just after 7:30am and I was today. After putting my plastic bottles in the re-cycling bins I made my way into the store equipped with my shopping list.
Now when I was working, I used to complain about seniors doing their shopping at lunchtime so I always avoid those times now I'm retired and besides, I enjoy a lie in in the morning but can still get my few bits in the week before midday. Another time I avoid shopping is shortly after schools come out in the afternoon (school holidays aren't any better either). The thing I hate about early Saturday mornings are loads of children from babies howling at well over 100 decibels to older ones running around chasing each other, shouting, poking fingers into the cellophane packaging and picking their noses before doing so. Their fraught parents either ignore them completely or have little or no control over them. These kids are probably dragged out of their beds (most of them look that way) and then bundled into the car without breakfast in order for their disorganised parents to come shopping. I am sure breakfast is forgotten because I often see them running aroung clutching fruit, cakes, rolls etc. and eating them on the way round the store. By the time they all roll up at the checkout, all that's left are empty packets to be scanned and I am sure that a lot are also jettisoned round the store. I have often encountered the odd empty packet stuffed in among the tinned tomatoes.
For this reason I would like to ban ALL children until after 9am when I have finished!
The next problem is the cashiers. The one I had this morning was in training for the Olympics! The conveyor belt must have been put on extra fast and she was scanning at the speed of light, which is unusual in itself, so I had to ask her to slow down as all my shopping was piling up. I explained that I was having difficulty in keeping up because I am unable to grip properly and my arms sometimes don't work as they should. Give her credit, she did slow down but I couldn't help noticing the bloke behind who was beginning to get irritated and started tapping his feet and tutting. I thought 'if you don't watch it mate I'm sure I can get my arm up quick enough to poke you in the eye'!
Well, all my shopping loaded and paid for I came home. Now, I had bought a few little extras because after all it is the festive season and I'm rather partial to a few nuts (the shelled variety of course) so I bought two packets of mixed nuts for £4. Of course you would expect a good mix wouldn't you? Well I would. I couldn't believe it! As one of the bags had split I decided to put the nuts straight into a bowl but the first bag contained 24 walnuts, 11 hazelnuts, 7 almonds and only 2 Brazils. Thank goodness I had bought the two bags because the other had 9 walnuts, 45 hazelnuts, 16 almonds and 7 Brazils. Obviously a need for quality control in the nut packing factory!
Anyway, that's me done at Tesco until after Christmas but I will be doing a quick trip to Sainsburys next Saturday but that's not usually as traumatic.