Fines for the elderly during rush hour, abolish the self-scan and 9 other tips to survive the supermarket

As a columnist you shouldn’t get too excited and I don’t have that either, don’t worry. But last week I thought for a split second: it’s good that I’m bringing up this subject.

That was the moment I saw all the reactions on Twitter to my call to share frustrations about the supermarket. You don’t want to know how things went down there. Going to the supermarket is hell for many people – apparently.

People who are annoyed that the cauliflowers are always upside down on the shelf, that the jars of the herbs are changed so that ‘the system in my cupboard no longer works’. People who are annoyed by the conversations of the stockers about their private lives, by the customers who do not put down the turn bar, by the Sinterklaas songs, by the men who are waiting for their wives (?!), by the people who only eat unhealthy things. buy at the gates that are electric – because that all costs electricity – “just the point that there are other people in the supermarket.” Man man man.

And so I thought: someone really needs to add some structure here. Otherwise things will go wrong. Here we go.

1. Every supermarket will have a friendly but strict doorman at the entrance and exit.

Who tasers customers who are calling loudly on the speaker, who gives people the receipt who are reading their shopping list just after the entrance, and who compliments customers who behave in an exemplary way – ‘that’s how it should be Mrs. Bouma, how nice that you were there again today, Mrs Bouma’.

2. The self-scan is being abolished – that’s where bastards are made.

Self-checkout areas are the Ryanairs of the supermarket: fighting for a seat, but without the low price. We simply reintroduce the cash registers with a cashier – that’s where you’ve always been done the quickest. What are you afraid of? Want to chat with the cashier? Is not it? Come on.

3. Then we immediately get rid of ‘the control’, which always makes you feel like a thief.

And after which all your carefully packed groceries, Tetris-style, are haphazardly thrown back into your bag (with the tomatoes at the bottom!!!). People with a million messages can no longer block the entire self-scanning square and we no longer have to face the excruciating uncertainty of ‘how the queue works’.

4. Because how does that row work?!?

Do you only queue for the nearest self-checkout, or can you also take the first available one on the other side if you wait the longest? Aaaaargh!!

5. Don’t go to the supermarket during rush hour if you have no business being there.

There will be time slots and fast passes for working parents. Other customers who demonstrably deserve preferential treatment – ​​doctors, nurses, nice people, police officers, teachers, etc. – are also given priority during rush hour. People who have no business being in rush hour – elderly people, scrum masters, quartermasters, drivers, etc. – get a fine. The entire store is cleared for the extremely stressed and extremely overstimulated. Why not.

6. Make sure you have a clear plan before you go to the supermarket – I’m talking about shopping lists here.

And have a plan B that you can fall back on if your core ingredient is sold out. You don’t just randomly go to the cinema and stand there wondering which film you want to see, do you? Well then. Flow, flow, flow, that is the code word.

7. The route in the supermarket will be adjusted.

This allows heavy, large products such as crates, bottles, detergent and toilet paper to be loaded into the cart first, followed by the smaller, lighter ones, with vegetables and eggs last.

8. There will be roundabouts, traffic lights, traffic signs and arrows on the road in every supermarket.

Each cart receives a bicycle bell. This way, no one will come home with flat kiwis anymore!

9. Do you come across two half-empty carts chatting in the aisle? Then join the conversation.

That you also have an aunt with osteoarthritis, that your neighbor across the street recently tripped with her walker and that you yourself have been sleeping poorly for weeks. You will be surprised how quickly they walk through again so that everyone can pass by again.

And then a word to the people on Twitter who, in response to the lawlessness in the supermarket, wanted to draw attention to ‘the complete erosion of something as simple as civil politeness that is now irreversible’ – I cannot solve everything for you.

The same applies to the people who are annoyed by ‘the entire families standing in front of the refrigerator discussing what they are going to eat’, by the items that are in the bonus this week, but which you already bought last week, by the dirty baskets – rather look at it from a different perspective.

10. See your visit to the supermarket as an anthropological experiment from which you can learn a lot!

Unleash the philosopher within you. So feel free to be annoyed by the person in front of you in the line who first calmly packs his groceries and only then digs his wallet out of his bag; at the bottle vending machine that FINALLY works again, but just as you arrive the community center is importing the four million cans from the past month. Feel free to be annoyed by the school classes that buy wokkels and Red Bull for lunch, by the whining toddlers, by the people who squeeze the avocados – but also ask yourself what that says about you and about society. Take notes.

11. And keep complaining!

That’s such a strange misunderstanding! That we should not complain about the supermarket because we ‘have it so good here in this country’. What nonsense! Complaints are a relief and what else should we complain about? The people who say: ‘get your groceries delivered’ really don’t understand it.

Because what could be better than being annoyed in a place where you encounter all the bodies of society? To exchange that look of understanding with strangers, or to feel the blood coming from your ears, and to experience the comfort of suffering shared sorrow with millions – after a visit to the supermarket you can handle anything again.

The supermarket brings us together.

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