Having carried a heavy bag home from the supermarket last week, I pondered on what to do to ease the suffering. Ideas such as, buy a wife, have a maid in, or have the supermarket's deliver to my door, all went through my mind. These were rapidly turned down on grounds of cost.
The Good Lord brought to mind an alternative so obvious that it had never crossed my mind in all the times I have been making use of these shops, use a trolley!
Yes, make use of a trolley, fill it with all the heavy things, push it down to your door, and return it to get back the £1 coin required to obtain the trolley in the first place. Simple innit?
So today, after much thought, I inserted my coin, a real one, took the trolley and had a very different experience of supermarket shopping. Like most men I usually take a basket, speed round gathering as I go, and avoid all these old women with trolleys barging into people and getting in the way.
Today, I barged into people, mostly men carrying baskets, and got in people's way.
Unused to the ability of such trolleys to have a mind of their own, I made my way round, chatting to men who also were disgruntled at the new managers ability to shift goods from one place to another so we cannot find them, and gathered all the heavy and awkward stuff I could find. This done, and another man with basket sent into the ice cream fridges, I made my way to the checkout where one of the best young women was in control.
Swiftly the masses were packed badly into the several overweight bags, swiftly, though no one was actually waiting at the time, it was remarkably quiet, we finished the job while chatting about nothing, well the weather, as we all do in this country. I paid the bill while the lass informed me, with a gasp, what the total was. I inserted the card, pressed the right buttons, and she gave me a long receipt. Too long in my view.
The new grasping manager has once again raised the prices, almost daily from him as he seeks a bigger shop, and this enables me to gasp also as I look again at the total paid. Just as well I forgot the whisky.
The journey home was short, tricky and on uneven pavements.
The parking lot was bad enough, sloping this way and that, once it held donkeys in a meadow, now it holds expensive chariots with grumbling unsmiling people. Many wish the donkeys would return.
The trolley was quite easy to manage except on a slope. The weight took it this way and that, while I struggled on occasion to keep it on the pavements, the camber, the remains of many water, gas and electric works not helping. However, I only lost it once and entered the roadway, that motorcyclist was quite safe, even though he took an unexpected trip through the park.
Outside my door I had to keep watch as the brute kept wanting to slide away. As I lifted each bag the weight shifted and the trolley moved accordingly. I got the door opened, took the bags inside carefully, watch the movement of the trolley all the time. This done, I left the bags indoors and took the return journey back to the store. Much easier when empty, and the motorcyclist was busy brushing grass from his machine, I don't know how he got hold of that. I pressed the chain in, took hold of my precious £1 coin, and returned home.
The simple job then was to hoist five, now much heavier bags, up the stairs, and into the commodious apartment. That's six times I have been up and down those stairs today! Once inside it was easy to distribute the many beer bottles tins of veg to their places. When finished I considered I had in one fell sweep filled at least enough for the run up to Christmas, and in some cases beyond that. I suspect that with the fast rising prices I will have saved money with this trip also. Now all I have to collect is light things like bread and milk, and occasional other fresh foods. Much easier all round.
Of course I have not moved since, eating and drinking and seizing up is all that is left for today.
