It seems the selectors remain happy with my general movement up and down the aisle and my passing across the barcode machine at the self-checkout is still economical — even if the groceries I’m buying are not.
Unfortunately, I’m letting myself down in a very important area. The fruit and vegetable section.
While I can stay on my feet and bind tight to my trolley in the first chaotic scrum as you come through the entry doors, my technical adviser, Mrs P, says it’s just not enough and I need to lift my work rate.
Most importantly, I need to improve my “fondling” technique.
Now, imagine if you will, Dear Reader, my environmental position on hearing that statement.
There I am in a parked car, in a quiet corner of the supermarket carpark, with this hot chick — who only gets hotter with every passing day — and she comes up with that.
Obviously, my suggestive smile coupled with a semi-raised eyebrow gave the game away and I was immediately issued a red card. I’m certain you know what I mean. Don’t pretend you don’t.
Back to the fruit and veg.
It seems lately when I’ve returned home with the groceries, Mrs P has discovered some of the fruit and vegetables — not all but more than you’d generally accept — have been a bit too soft or rotten in places.
She is of the opinion I’ve not been spending enough time checking, or fondling, the items concerned. And I’m talking here about stuff like apples, bananas, avocados, pumpkin etc.
As a result, Mrs P has decided to join me today and show me how it’s done.
And so, here we are. I’m attached to the trolley amid the early chaos as shoppers who don’t want fruit and veg attempt to find a way through. Big pat on the back to the design guru who cut a hole in the wall by the entry at our supermarket to allow shoppers to bypass F and V.
While the traffic about her crashes and bangs in multiple directions, Mrs P remains oblivious as she wafts gracefully from apples to bananas, squeezing and caressing as she goes. Her fruit selected, she glides past the trolley and deposits them on her way over to the avocados and pumpkin.
That’s when it got good.
I was summoned to her side and given a crash course in the gentle examination of avocados. Just enough pressure to feel if they are ripe without bruising the fruit. Or you can push in the stalk at the top. Dark is ripe, green is not.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her somebody told me last week you can have green that is completely ripe too. Apparently.
Anyway, she gives me four avos to take to the trolley and moves on to the pumpkin.
She’s spotted one that looks promising. It’s a bit high on the pile so she reaches out to grab it and pull it down for closer examination. As she puts her hand on the pumpkin and closes her grip, half of the thing collapses in on itself in one rotten, gooey, soggy mess. And Mrs P screams.
Not only that but she jumps back.
Just at that moment, I’m walking past with the aforementioned four avos. She bumps into me and I drop three of the four.
I say drop. It was more like one of those crazy juggling acts you see on YouTube.
I’ve got a firm grip on No 1 but I’m having to bend, twist and turn legs and arms in a series of jerky movements to stop the others smashing onto the floor.
I catch No 2 but No 3 fails to deploy a parachute and hits the ground with a thud.
No 4 has been watching the calamity unfold from a greater height and, on seeing the demise of his brother, elects to join him in the afterlife and go down too.
But I’m having none of it. With a desperate lunge, I get my fingertips to him and haul him to safety inches from the floor. Unfortunately, as I do, my centre of balance is compromised and I go sprawling.
My embarrassment is complete when I’m assisted to my feet by a couple of youngsters who I later hear telling their mum — who presumably was asking where they’d been — they had helped “that old guy over there”.
While all this is going on, Mrs P has quietly left the scene and is waiting for me just around the corner. She’s wiped the goo off her hand and recovered from the shock of the rotten pumpkin. Now she’s in hysterics at my antics.
I had to admit it was kind of funny. It certainly relieved the tedium of the shopping expedition. We were still laughing as we made it to the checkouts and began unloading the items from the trolley.
Mrs P likes to keep an eye on this part of the operation. She’s not able to visit the supermarket very often these days so just likes to see what the prices are doing. I think she also likes to make sure I’m not buying an illegal chocolate bar or something too.
On this occasion, all meet with her approval until we get to the avocados.
“I thought we got four,” she says, puzzled. “There’s only three there”.
That’s when I pulled a box of laundry powder from the trolley and placed it on the checkout belt.
Then I turned round to show her the seat of my shorts and the squashed remains of avocado No 4.
You could say he will be “fondly” remembered.
