In-person Christmas shopping is a challenge and certainly different from what had always been taken for granted until that darn COVID decided to change our lives.
I’m sure some persons in the retail trade have often bitten their tongues so as not to tell unfriendly customers where to go. Now all customers are gently guided and told where to go — by arrows placed on the floor in the aisles so shoppers are able to social distance and hopefully avoid contact with other store visitors.
It is these arrows that provide part of the shopping challenge. First of all, some folks are obviously arrow-challenged, wandering whichever way they desire to get to specific products on the shelves. Maybe this inability to follow arrow direction is simply an extension of how arrows in the parking lot are ignored. I can hear the thinking of those drivers: “Those arrows are not telling me which way to drive. Those other fools are going the wrong way.”
Ditto for indoor arrows and resulting thoughts from some: “I want a case of Coke and I don’t care what the arrow says. I’m going this way and those other fools had better get out of my path.”
And so the challenges have been issued and the fun begins. It is interesting to note that some shoppers religiously follow directions and are embarrassed when they realize they took a wrong turn at the Kraft Dinner display. They look around to see if they have been observed and make a hurried U-turn and head back the way they came — almost as though they expect the Arrow Police to issue a ticket right there in front of strangers.
A friend tells me she has perfected the arrow shopping experience. On her shopping list she only writes down items she’s sure to forget. The rest is left to chance and good memory that will be triggered when she sees those items on the shelf. She says she moves with the arrows, up and down, back and forth, and takes her time looking closely at every shelf so she goes home with what she needs, and maybe a bit more, usually items on sale or that can be stored.
I had to follow that advice recently, not by design, but because the carefully written grocery list was safely at home on the table, right where I left it after trying to write it according to what I remembered of the location of each item. I only missed one item that day — eggnog — because the shipment hadn’t arrived yet.
I was a bit sheepish when I returned home, to admit my faux pas to Housemate but he congratulated me for my successful venture back into the grocery shopping business.
More than the arrows on the floor though, was the frustrating amount of time wasted while trying to open those plastic bags for the vegetables. In the olden days earlier this year it was a matter of licking one’s fingers and then rubbing those wet fingers along the arrow indicated as the spot to be opened. Voila, the bag opened. Not so now because it is almost impossible to lick one’s fingers while wearing a mask.
It must be time to invest in those special vegetable sacks that can be reused and recycled. I wonder in which aisle they are located, and whether I should go north or south, east or west to discover their location.
A GPS on the grocery cart might be another worthy invention. “Turn left at the Stove Top Stuffing then right at the ice cream treats. Stop in two metres and keep your distance. No, no, don’t back up.”
Joyce Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
