Normally, I’m a placid, tolerant kind of person. I think it’s fair to say that I am a nice person. However, yesterday I went Xmas food shopping and it brought out some inner rage.
I am practicising to become a grumpy old man – I believe after years of being nice, I have earned this right – and so, for your amusement, I present, in no particular order, the top ten things that nearly prompted a spat of shoppercide (mancepsicide? My Latin is limited to Google translate)

1) Partners who decide to help by dragging the trolley from the front
What you end up with is two people pushing and pulling in opposite directions and resulting in the trolley moving in a slightly sideways direction. It never helps, never! It just makes things worse. Even more annoying, it’s never co-ordinated, resulting in eratic movement that causes other shoppers frustration.
2) People who park their trolley in front of something you are trying to look at
I’ll admit that trolleys have to stop somewhere, so my beef is not so much with people pulling their trolleys over to the side, but the ones who just stare and watch as you are trying to look at and get to the goods behind. Offering a polite excuse me, results in them moving it so little that a stick would not be able to get through.
3) Freeroaming children
Yes, it’s lovely that little Timmy can now walk, but take him to a park. Don’t just let them totter along behind you, holding up those of us who want to get our shopping done a little faster than someone who has just learned to stand on two feet. Worse still are those parents who do not pay attention, and only after calling Timmy for the third time, turn around and find he’s emptied all the milk over the aisle.
4) Sideways parkers
If you decide to look at something, please pull your trolly in, not leave it pointed out into the center of the aisle. I may have only eggs in my trolley but I will use them to kill you if you give me so much as an evil look when I bump into your outstretched trolley. This just makes me want to attach a cowplough to the front of my trolley and charge everyone out the way.
5) People who shout shopping lists
Parents, do not send your children to go get items with insufficient information, and then result in a shouting match that the entire shop can hear.
“Susan, grab me some milk.”
“Which one?”
“The green one.”
“What size?”
“The large one. Susan, I said the green one.”
It makes me want to stab the parent through the larynx with a frozen sausage!
6) People who abandon trolleys in the middle of the aisle
Never mind that people want to get past, you’ve seen a bargain and have dropped everything to get to it. I have a good mind to fill your trolley with frozen turkeys whilst you are gone. That, or if they have a pharmacy section, haemorrhoid cream.
7) People who dump their few items on the far end of the conveyor
I had one mother actually moan at her kid yesterday because he tried to be considerate and move their shopping up so I could start placing mine.
“Joss, the conveyor works,” she moaned.
So do your arms, luv. So do your arms!
8 ) Slow shoppers
It’s a fact, that slow shoppers seem to waddle a little from side to side. It happens, whether due to age or illness and I won’t berate someone for being slow. But it’s impossible not to notice people streaming past you and realise such. Therefore, make a point of keeping to the side so people can pass, rather than get stuck behind your waddling ass as we try to get things done before our car parking runs out… or the sun sets!
9) People who cannot see queues
There’s a bunch of 4 self-service tills, there’s a single queue for all of them, but some chancer tries to queue jump. When challenged, they always say “Oh sorry, I didn’t realise.” Yeah, right, asshole, like we’d all be queuing for one and ignoring the other three. Back of the queue!
10) Other shoppers
They just clog the aisles, fills up the till queues and generally get in MY way. And they always seem to go shopping at the same time as me and go out of their way to annoy me. Bah humbug. Merry fucking Xmas.
Feel free to add to the list with your own pet peeves that encourage the urge to go postal in the middle of Tescos with a nerf gun.