Menstrual Mondays – Supermarkets

Let me tell you about my day

This morning I woke up curled up next to a gorgeous English girl, warm in a double bed, thankful knowing I’d finally been diagnosed, prescribed antibiotics, and given 10 days leave to try and cover from a life-threatening blood infection. After giggling and playing around in bed for an hour or so we got up, I had a nice and relaxed shower, breakfast, read through dozens of web-comics I’ve been missing, and generally had a pretty chilled-out/awesome morning.

Then I glanced in the fridge, decided I should probably stock up if I was staying here for the week, and tottered off to the local supermarket without a care in the world…

Now, regular readers (or you know, anyone that has even heard of the mighty ginge) will know that I generally despise any large concentrations of humanity at the best of time. But going to a supermarket really burns my balls. For some mysterious reason the moment the average person of reasonable intellect (a creature I’m now starting to doubt the existence of) walks into one of these monuments to consumerism, they turn into a skin-bag of amino acids with the same questionable level of consciousness as Terri Schiavo. And knowing this, I try to evade the inevitable nervous breakdown/bloodbath by -

• Making a list before hand,
• Going when “normal” people are working
• Charging in there with headphones on and list in hand,
• Avoiding eye-contact with any of the countless mongoliods populating the supermarket
• Washing thoroughly afterwards to rid myself of the coat of filth going out in public leaves me with

Unfortunately these things don’t always go to plan, and I have to come home and drown a bunch of kittens. Like this afternoon…

For starters, who the fuck designs supermarkets? There’s clearly some sort of instinctual-primate programming  that I’m missing, because I can’t find fucking anything. And who would want to design a supermarket?

NOBODY DESIGNS FUCKING SUPERMARKETS

5 year olds born without an imagination or arms, and with a crayon stuck in their mouth might. So in an exercise to treat my obvious yet undiagnosed autism, I decided to see things from someone else’s point of view by imagining how a 5-year old Thalidomide baby “armed” (pun intended) with a box full of Crayola might draw the supermarket I just walked out of – it’s surprisingly accurate!

I would encourage the use of the above diagram in following the rest of today’s story, “The Mighty Ginge Narrowly Avoids Murdering a Supermarket Full of People”.

Now, I’ll admit I may not have helped things today. While I was pre-prepared with my list and my music, it was a busy Saturday afternoon and I was listening to the playlist I use to wind myself up before going for a run or punching a bunch of orphans.

But that doesn’t make up for the fact that just anyone can push a shopping trolley, and they don’t need to pass a driving test to do it. We’ve discussed previously how old people should stay out of my life by sticking to the things they’re good at, like complaining about house boat speeds, and dying. But they really need to stay away from trolleys. Because just like driving on the road, old people seem particularly adept at getting lost/confused, and blocking the road/aisle as they dawdle down it slow enough to start to re-fossilise in the process.

Oh, and that goes for new mothers too -laying on your back and letting some bus driver blast his caffeine-riddled semen into you a year ago and subsequently spawning a future Katie Price, does not give you the right to block the entire dairy aisle with the mobile, screaming shit-factory you call your “pride and joy”. I get that you want to casually chat to another one of your kind, with her own little fuck trophy in a pram next to yours, but maybe do it in the carpark where you might get hit by a Landrover instead.

Supermarket mothers – You too can raise a daughter that goes on to have a successful series of book deals and a hit TV show… all based on the fact that she’s an enormous synthetic whore

Things always take 5 times longer in a supermarket. It shouldn’t take so long, but because there’s always that ONE FUCKING THING YOU CAN’T FIND, an already painful experience is drawn out into something akin to having to discuss philosophy with Kanye West. You go around and around, looking for something you just know they sell, but can’t find. Like milk. Or eggs. Or sun-dried tomatoes and condoms. I eventually gave up on the sun-dried tomatoes, but I would be damned if I was going to be leaving without condoms – it’s Saturday/party night, and the cocktail of antibiotics I’m on are making me hornier than a blind lesbian in a fish market.

Now you’d think safe sex would be something they would be encouraging in Devon at the moment, but you’d never guess it – I spent half an hour walking the entire fucking supermarket trying to find them this afternoon. “Maybe they’re in the baked goods area?” I went up and down the healthcare/dental aisle no less than 5 times trying to find them, gave up, lined up at the check-out for 10 minutes, thought “Fuck this, I will not be beaten here” and searched again. Sure, there’s a full aisle dedicated to raising your little brood of future drug-dealers, but heaven forbid you want to avoid catching a venereal disease like Gonorrhoea or Pregnancy.

Low and behold though, in my final desperate search before I opted for the “wrap a garbage bag around it” option, I find a single shelf of condoms – the bottom shelf, below four shelves of heartburn medication. In fairness, if you’d seen some of the wildebeest I’ve tried to wet my wick in over the years you’d probably need a dose of antacid too. But most appropriate product placement? I think not.

Can I pay you to put a burka on instead then?

Condoms in hand I thought the torment was over, only to have the little 16-year-old shit stain working check out hold them up and ask if I had a big night planned. Yes I do have a big night planned – once I’m done fucking you on the cash register with the foot long cucumber you just scanned, I’m going to find out where you live and leave a burning cross on your front lawn with your cat crucified to it.

I’ll see you tonight, Martin…