Supermarket Shopping - Just How Stressful An Experience Can It Be?

Look, I don’t know about you but I hate shopping - okay, I’m the exception - castigate me - see if I care.

I am sincerely hacked off right now.  I’ve had a day and a half I really have and nothing you can say or do could add to it…

See, I thought I’d get the bits and pieces I need from the supermarket today as tomorrow is Friday and likely to be well busy - it is also Christmas Eve so even the Brits are likely to be out and about causing chaos.

So I got up early - having promised myself a lie in - never mind.
Showered and was out the door as quick as you like as I had a lot lot lot to do today.

So I jumped in the car - noted with irritation that it was almost devoid of petrol...but that’s as maybe, that car can run on fumes I swear!  So I decided I’d do the garage another day.

I was just about to back out when some bird in an olive grove (massive 4x4, so called as to buy them the Cypriots have been selling the family olive groves to developers in order to afford them according to ‘Cyprus Today’) parked across my parking space.

Right, so, my car’s small I’ll grant you but it’s not bloody invisible.

So I hang my head out the window and alert her to my existence...she, in all fairness, moves outta the way pronto and without fuss.

Now backing out was a tricky affair...the back window was so clogged with crud as to make it almost impossible to see anything.  In the end I had to wind down both front windows to enable me to see out the side mirrors - yes...all crud encrusted too.

We’ve discussed this before haven’t we? 
I clean the house, the clothes and the dishes...I don’t clean the car.  So the car gets dirty and stays dirty...but this is getting ridiculous - I couldn’t see out!!!!!!!!!!!

Luckily for me the windscreen wash was still full so I squirted with a vengeance and was off...with the windows still down for junctions of course.

At the main road junction I performed my usual illegal turn across the lanes to get out into the flow of traffic without having a four hour wait (involves me driving at cars to move them out of the way...works well surprisingly, seeing as I drive a wee pink mini and all the other cars are about 10 foot higher than mine).  But guess what happened next...I’m followed out into the flow of traffic by a feckin’ police bike complete with flashing blue lights and big policeman wildly gesticulating.

Nicked!

I think fast, yes I have my licence, no I haven’t been drinking (it’s only 10am, give me a chance), insurance is in the glove box alright and the illegal move is common place here...can’t be that illegal surely.

So I decide to ignore the policeman, after all, if he really wants me to stop he’ll put his siren on...probably.

Next thing I know he pulls along side me (he’s in the middle of the road - far more illegal than what I did surely?) and stares in my open window (open to see out, open though it is really too cold to be open).

I refuse to return eye contact as I am DRIVING, I need my eyes to be looking out front, he ain’t catching me out that way - ha!

So he slips back in behind my car and FOLLOWS ME…

I start sweating…

Yes, my seat belt’s on...what about my break lights?  Maybe they aren’t working, better slow down so I don’t have to break then...breathe breathe…

He follows me all the way to the supermarket, I can see him in my side mirror as he is hanging on the edge of my bumper.

AND THEN - he waves at me to pull over - even I couldn’t mistake the gesture, so now I do as I’m told (now I’m so scared I need a wee and can’t concentrate and forget to indicate) and then...strangely, he tells the guy behind me to pull in too...and then he speeds off into the distance?

Closely followed by a HUGE black limo complete with lots more blacked out windowed cars and more police out riders - PANTS - I wasn’t doing anything illegal after all, I was just causing a massive tail back for the bloomin president or something and all because I couldn’t see out the back window...if I’d been able to see I’d never have missed that lot!

I gently park in the car park, take a few calming breaths and then notice the black clouds hurling themselves down the mountains at me (Lemar supermarket in Karaoglanoglu has an amazing mountain backdrop - has to be seen to be believed...it’s like a squillion foot wall up behind it...everso cool) anyway, before I’d left home I’d hung my washing out...and Andy wasn’t in for me to call and ask him to rescue it.  Gaaaaa, turning into one hell of a day then eh?

So, I leg it round the supermarket, forgetting half the items I wanted, knocking mogadoned shoppers aside in my haste to be outta there ASAP.  I chuck my shopping at the poor girl on the till, drop half the stuff on the floor as I race to bag it up and make it home before all my knickers blow off the line and end up in the mud...and THEN GUESS WHAT HAPPENS?

All the card readers go down...and I have NO CASH in my wallet.
Chaos ensues…
And all the while I’m stuck there with a trolley load of frozen broccoli (?) and no way out.

I stand there in a sort of daze for half an hour racing through dead end strategies in my mind...I even contemplate going over to Unwins and asking my adopted North Cyprus Estate Agent Daniel to lend me the cash!  But knowing him he’ll be skint too!

Finally they tell me to get out and take my shopping with me!
Yes, seriously!
Come back and pay us later…
I’m there thinking - are you sure? 
You can’t trust me, I’m a little bit werrrr, a little bit weyyyyyy, a little bit arrrrgggh. I’m a geezer.
But they insist!

I can’t have this...I can’t be trusted?

So I drive to the nearest cash point, execute another illegal turn, race back to the shop and deposit the cash into the hands of the check out chick who looks TOTALLY surprised to see me back so soon - and all the while the clouds are frowning at me and the fuel light is blinking at me and...well...and nothing else actually, I get home, it doesn’t rain and I don’t run out of petrol and I’m not arrested and the only major thing I’ve forgotten is sugar which I don’t take in my coffee anyway...what do you mean you’re disappointed - wasn’t that much stress enough entertainment for you?