WITH Christmas fast approaching, you’ll be spending a frightening amount of time and money in the supermarket. But what should you definitely not do while shopping during a pandemic?
Loiter near the meat
Mindlessly browsing in the supermarket really isn’t on now – although it was pretty heinous before Covid. You do NOT need to spend 15 minutes in front of the pork chops. They are just chops. And it isn’t okay to wrestle with other shoppers when the butcher emerges from cold storage with a pallet of marked-down mince.
Chat with the cashiers
In the olden days you could shoot the breeze with the checkout staff to your heart’s content. Especially if you wanted to piss off people queuing behind. But now you should make it like a high-tension SAS operation. Shopping? Bagged. Affirmative. Card – swiped. Nectar points – collected. Lego cards – yes, I am collecting. Now go, go, go!
Squeeze fruit
Pre-Covid, shoppers were allowed to grope as much fruit and veg as they liked. Not anymore. In fact if someone so much as runs their finger along a Honeydew melon they don’t fully intend to buy a team of shelf-stackers should roughly bundle them into the storeroom for a ticking off from the duty manager.
Sing along to the store muzak
This is a time of paranoia and panic, so it is not appropriate to sing along to Slade’s ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’. Also, all Christmas music is shit, except ‘Stop the Cavalry’, so there’s no need to generate more of it.
Stuff your face while you browse
We’ve all had a nibble on food that technically still belongs to the supermarket. But no more – mandatory masks have scuppered that. You could probably slip some crisps under your PPE without compromising its integrity, but think first – does it look a bit ‘common’?
