Let me start by saying I am not the kind of person who gets any joy from shopping. Yes, I enjoy the casual stroll around the shops, maybe buying something, maybe not. But shopping for a purpose does not make me happy. And shopping for food makes me less than happy.

The closest supermarket to my house is located in a small, slightly weird shopping centre. We call it Deliverance Village, because I always hear banjo music when I am there. Not only is the supermarket frequented by more than the average population of loonies, there is a particularly large number of elderly people. Now, I know I too will be an old person one day, but still. Old people are really annoying in supermarkets. They stop randomly, stare into space, smell strongly of mothballs and old, and accost innocent bystanders to tell them their entire life stories…

This is why internet shopping makes me very happy. I sit at my computer, glass of wine in one hand, shopping list in the other; pick out my selections, and press send. them less than 24 hours later, it’s delivered to my kitchen. Yes, my KITCHEN. All this for less than $8. Calm, pleasant transaction, and all I have to do is put it away.

BUT…

I have been dieting. I have been eating well. And most importantly, I have been eating a lot more fresh food. And fresh food is something the internet groceries do not so well. So I shop at the fruit shop and the butcher and the baker, with only an occasional need for a top up shop at the supermarket. This means heading to the local with list in hand for a quick trip around the aisles…

OR…

Hmm. We don’t need all that much. It’s not really worth doing an online shop, I’ll just go to the supermarket…with the kids. I really don’t need all that much stuff, and last time we went they were really good…

Yes. Well. That was last time. I bribed them with a snack to start off with – iced bun from the bakery. Mmmm sticky. The Big Kid hops out of the trolley when it started getting congested – six litres of milk and six litres of juice will fill up a trolley somewhat. The Big Kid is pretty good – doesn’t run away, will help more often than not. The Little Kid likes to Help. We start working our way through the list, and the first pass through the supermarket is – well – They Moved Everything Around.

Don’t you hate that?

I don’t go to the supermarket all that often, but I go often enough that I know roughly where everything is. But when They decide to rearrange things, it’s a Phil Spector Nightmare. First pass through, the trolley is getting full; and I seem to have lots of large things. This means the back of the little seat is starting to ummm move forward, I guess. The Little Kid is getting restless, so I let him out. Little Kid has been cooped in the trolley for half an hour, he’s more than a little restless so the first thing he does when he’s released is run…

STOP!

Half a dozen old dears stop dead in their tracks, and the Little Kid cuts and weaves through their legs. I am hot pursuit, wheeling the overladen trolley between the oldies and the shelf stackers. I catch him, threaten him with going back *in* the trolley… It’s all good. I go back to checking my list, and scouring the shelves for the things that were right there last time we came… So – I have one eye on the Big Kid, one eye on my list, one eye on the shelves and one eye on the Little…

STOP!

The Little Kid backs carefully away from the stack of really interesting and shiny things he has his paws on, and a couple more old dears gradually start moving again… We finally get to the checkout, Big Kid has managed to completely trash the packaging of a 12 pack of toilet paper by pretending it was a Ben 10 watch. Hmm. 12 pack of loo rolls v watch. Yes. I can see the connection. Little Kid decides that he has to Help unload the trolley. Little Kid cannot see over the trolley let alone pick anything out to put on the coveyor belt. I take things out, hand them to him, he puts them on the conveyor belt, I move them along… I call the Big Kid back with his Ben 10 watch err toilet rolls and give the Little Kid a banana.

By the time we got home, I was ready for a Bex and a lie down. But unfortunately, I had 90 million bags of shopping to lug up the stairs, then put away whilst keeping aforementioned children OUT of the shopping and from sampling tasty objects.

Memo to self: DON’T DO IT!!!!