Chapter 239 : Shopping (part two)

We gradually fill up our trolley and wander from aisle to aisle. 

We round the display of canned fruit into the next aisle. A strong powerful uniformed man stands with arms crossed loitering.  He's trolleyless and he's not buying anything.  On his lapel are the words 'loss prevention officer.' 

He frightens me and I pretend he doesn’t exist.

A young female lady ex-patient suddenly appears at the end of the aisle with her partner.  He struts protectively.  I don't know him but I can see enough to know that she is not going to acknowledge me.  Suits me.  I don't want him to say to her, "Who's that?"

 

Round the toilet paper pyramid from cereals into the aisle selling cleaners, laundry needs and prewash.

Kay stands by herself between walls of groceries. Looking very forlorn. She raises her arms and says: I want to hug you.

I bend down and we hug each other between the walls of laundry detergents.

A lady walks past us with her precious child. She says to her daughter: Don’t you ever do that. You know what men are like.

I am grateful that Kay has not heard a thing and that she has given me something precious. A priceless hug.

In the fruit and veggie section I grab a piece of glad wrap from the rolls of gladwrap.  I try and open the gladwrap to make a bag to put some apples in.  I’m sure there must be trick to this.  Perhaps I've got the wrong end.  Nobody else seems to be having my trouble. In the end I put the gladwrap in my pocket and buy a pre-packaged bag of apples.

We head towards the ‘12 items or less’ queue.  My wife is worried.  She sees someone who has more than 12 items in her trolley. I think please don’t say anything. It is not our job to count how many items are in each trolley.

In the meantime, my wife sees a better lane.  A lane we should be in.  She goes for it.  Grabs the trolley and shifts lanes.  A dangerous move. 

In the new lane I see an another ex-patient in the queue ahead of us.  I know I know her. She looks at me and smiles.

Me: “Hello Sophie."

Her face reddens.  Embarrassed and stunned.

Me: “Ah sorry, sorry.”

I stumble and mumble and try to think of her correct name. She helps me, “It's Sarah."

I apologise again: “I'm so sorry."

"Don't worry I do that all the time," she says as she takes her groceries from her trolley.

I stand and wonder.  How could I be so stupid? I can’t keep on apologising. Perhaps once is enough.

My wife isn't interested.  She is scanning her eyes over the magazines and picks one with a picture of distant Royals and the headline “We want a normal life.” She discards the magazine and unhappily makes a fatal mistake. She looks back at the lane we were in and sees that it is moving much quicker than our present stationary queue.

We finally unload our produce.  The checkout-chick stares at a vegetable and says, “My mind has gone blank.”

I bite my lip and manage to answer without a trace of sarcasms.

Me: “It’s a cabbage.”

Checkout-chick.: “Thank you.”

We start packing the produce.  It is our fashion to buy non-disposable reusable bags and then leave them at home.  Once again this is what we do, so we buy bags.  The checkout chicks always seem to have braces.  I could ask her about her braces. I might be able to help her.  I don’t. I get the feeling she might want to talk about her braces but not to me.

We are almost finished.  Just need to walk past the statue of a guide dog with the slot in his head and the sign saying, ‘please support guide dogs,’ through the automatically opening doors, ride the trolley down the ramp, pack the groceries in the car, ram the trolley into the rear of the other trolleys, drive home, listen to my wife say, “You can’t find anything you want nowadays,” and then unpack the groceries.