Oh! What an incredible facile world you must live in.

You arrive at the till with 2 weeks’ worth of shopping whilst clutching with all your feeble might, what may happen to be the smallest carrier bag on the planet.

You watch with keen interest as your vapid ingredients are hurriedly pushed through the till area by the hard working yet scared shitless cashier and then you wait.

Wait for what?

I am unsure how to answer this question as I can see no obvious obstruction causing you to stop.

Was it to watch the cashier trying with all their might to get the goods through as quickly as possible?

Perhaps.

Did you leave the gas on? Maybe.

Dog in the car? The list is endless.

It would seem, by an innocent bystander trying not to die, that the outright genius plan you had put into motion was to wait for all of your ‘must have items’ to be pilled up so high you could begin your own game of fucking grocery Tetris.

To enjoy said game, you thought it would be even more fun to sweatily sidle around the protective plastic lifesaving shield at the end of the till and try, and want for a better word, stuff your much needed items into a freezer bag.

The horrified cashier, as was I, were mentally counting the many minutes accumulating whilst you ham fistedly tried to defy the laws of physics.

Instead of moving to the packing area, you instead stood there incredulous that you couldn’t stuff the equivalent of an elephant into the pocket of your trousers.

Somehow, against all scientific reasoning you managed it, bar a dozen eggs which sat like a beacon of absolute failure at the end of the till.

The cashier and I both stared at each other in complete amazement and in that split second, we read each other’s minds.

His: I’m going to lose my job when I now open my mouth.

Me: How much jail time is this going to cost me.

Luckily, by now our sweaty, woollen jumper wearer in 20-degree heat fuckwit, had decided to pay for the obvious detritus which had been hammered into the now splitting bag.

Excellent I thought, I can finally get on and leave this petri dish and go back to hiding amongst the 4 walls of government imposed madness.

Nope.

Whilst I was imagining of all the horrible things that would be done to my personage in Wormwood Scrubs, this criminally insane human being began patting his pockets for ways to procure his comestibles.

As this obvious bonhomie to other patrons is occurring, I manage to think of every single variable to every 4-letter word in the known universe and also that of Douglas Adams.

Just as my internal apoplexy is reaching spontaneous human combustion levels, this lunatic manages to find a card and pay.  This also manages to annoy me as I was just about to vent my anger, so I now have to hold it in and rupture a blood vessel.

After what I can only say is a mastery and dextrous packing of food and paying which would shame any formula 1 team, I pour a gallon of hand sanitizer over myself and vacate the store.

Upon exiting the store to blessed sunshine, fresh air and hopefully a loon free walk home, I happen to notice a very sweaty induvial wearing an incredibly thick jumper go back into the shop.

( A Few days after lock down, not publishing date)

This is a shout out to the dexadrine using 65 year old motherfucker that probably managed to spread the disease more than the hugging community which lives down the road.

Once again, I was in a fucking queue, this cool cat had covered his face with a scarf and was wearing gloves.

Surgical gloves and a proper face mask you ask?

Well, let’s just say his myopic grandmother had knitted these whilst she was having a diabetic seizure.

I was trying to keep my 2 meters by pushing the Lidl basket in front of me as far as possible and checking the relatively normal person behind me was also keeping a safe distance.

This guy was constantly moving around his basket and running off for something he’d forgotten and then stopping at someone random person in the queue but to then realise it’s not his basket and then pat them on the arm as a way of an apology and move as closely as possible to everyone on the way to his basket.

Whilst twitching more than a character in trainspotting, he’s rubbing his gloved hand against his scarf covered nose, wipes his brow and then does another supermarket dash.

At this point, I’m wondering if I have enough accelerant at home to burn my clothes and possibly the outer layer of my skin or the world at large.

Ok, he’s got to the till, things will move for the positive as I can feel a collective relaxation of everyone behind me.

However.

To distract myself from Margaret Thatcher’s Care In The Community unloading in front of me, I start to feel a bit guilty as I noticed I have got 2 tins of tomatoes and I only need one.

Whilst pondering this existential crisis, I look up.

Fuck me for fucks sake!

The grandmothers woollen clad Renton is not only coughing into his oversized loose fitting hand garment he is also handing items back to the cashier as he decided that 4 of everything in the entire shop would be fine and was quite dismayed to find that it wasn’t

Once again,  I am questioning myself about moving to Bristol from Cornwall as there were more opportunities.

Opportunities of what, I now ask.