#but to be fair maybe i should think about feetnotes

[blanket-hugger]

aldi hubris

summary

issue: i drop things when i participate in the supermarket spontaneously as a customer

consequences: the food gets broken, so the streets might contain up to three (3) pastas and the vegetable should be eaten immediately

why won't i learn anything: i don't have the energy to plan so well, so many things to keep track of when one goes outside and i have hang-ups

good things: i actually managed to buy the good cakes despite the odds

being lazy has detrimental consequences sometimes!

the most tedious details

after a day at the workplace pretending rather badly to be a human creature full of humaneness and a broad idea of what other humans called "parents" and "youths" want or need to hear, i got off the bus early when i thought "man i would really like some orange-flavoured delicje¹ in my belly this evening to celebrate my continued survival". It was 1630.

but then, as it entered my FOV, i remembered aldi's existence and thought that since i felt v lazy and would very likely default on my plans to do groceries tomorrow smh by oversleeping, i elected to go to aldi without a plan. i hoped to buy a couple of delicious food items that would allow me to comfortably not do groceries tomorrow.

so i went into aldi. i was a bit nervous that the delicje shop would close at 1700, so i planned on not buying many items, but the list was not yet decided as i entered the store (this sounds like the first classical blunder).

i did not pick a basket. most of the times i don't because logic dictates that if i had a basket, then i am increasing my carrying capacity beyond what i could then carry outside of the shop into my flat 10 minutes away. of course it is sensible to pick up a shopping basket when you have a bag that you plan on not using in the store to store your food if it were inconvenient to hold it in such a way that would facilitate the putting the food therein. i was precisely in this situation, but the bag in question was my work backpack, which has a surprisingly large capacity for shopping item, but that I still would rather not overflow with items of varying squishiness².

so i went in, did not pick up a basket and started collecting items. i really felt decadent, so i picked an avocado after checking it was imported from columbia (i suppose the truly woke thing would be to ban avocados from my life). and then i picked up some cheap pastas. then i picked up some more items and was struggling to hold all of that in my arms (another blunder)

i picked up some cheap cakes, and thought that maybe i should skip buying delicje

the avocado fell and actually burst open ever-so-slightly (but did not spill). i still kept it, although i did consider being antisocial and picking up another one. that would make my situation even more precarious

i checked out. i made a cashier do work instead of going to the self-checkout because i had failed to notice the self-checkout existed until i had deposited my items on the counter³.

then i noticed my backpack actually contained a foodbox i had elected to take back from work. i had forgotten about it because i had used it on friday, thought "oh ill leave it to dry at the office kichen overnight and take it then", took it today, felt satisfied about that but not enough to remember i had done that when i went to aldi.

so the avocado definitely could not go into the bag, unless i put it in the foodbox. but i was too nervous to take it out to put stuff in it because that could have taken more time than what i elected to do, which was to keep a bunch of stuff in my arms including the pastas and the next customers were waiting.

i decided to go buy the delicje in the end on the grounds that cakes don't go bad so fast so it's okay (and also b/c the opening hours of that shop i usually can't meet with my decadent lifestyle).

i arrived at 1640, i picked up three (3) packs. which made a lot of things on my hands. i managed to put one in my backpack and was considering putting the pastas in the front pocket. This time around there were no lines behind me, so i felt freer to experiment

what a damnable mistake that was. the pack of pastas burst open (but did not spill) when i tried to squeeze in there, so i took it in my arms and tried as best as i could to cover the hole with the broken avocado.

walking home i spilled three (3) pastas despite my best efforts. i did not try to pick them up from the ground, fearing i would make my situation worse. i bumped into the head of my school on the way there, i think i have spilled no pastas near her and that she did not notice my broken items, but she probably has noticed that i was carrying stuff in my hands in a decidely inefficient and uncomfortable manner⁴. i don't think she could use that to fire me anyway

i have little fucking clue why i am writing this, i am tired. i don't know how people do this. maybe in the future i will keep my ambitions in check. i don't want to procure plastic bags. the planet is going to die anyway, but having to anticipate that later in my life i would have to throw out an empty platic bag feels annoying on an emotional level now.

::

¹ it's like jaffa cakes, but edible. like idk, i have only heard of "jaffa cake" as a name in the UK and the ones of that brand i find kinda bad?? the chocolate specifically i find bad. Can't say why. the M&S variant i find quite ok but also not as good as my go-to continental brands. i had a bit of an addiction to such cakes before, now i guess it's healed ↩︎

² in most cases, not picking a basket is my default reaction. when i plan ahead and bring a shopping bag, it is one that is convenient enough i can use it as a basket in the shop, so that reinforces the policy. But idk if it wise actually. I could see a case for picking a basket in that it could make self-checkout more efficient if those self-checkouts allowed you to put your bag on the scale before scanning stuff, but it never worked for me in the first sainsbury's i went to so i never attempt it??? also picking the basket feels like using resources and using resources sometimes creates work for people that maintain the resource. but not sure if this is significant enough to let that train of thought influence me ↩︎

³ usually i favor the self-checkout b/c i don't want to create more work for the cashiers. this causes me to sometimes walk by checkout that have no customers there with the cashier sitting there idle, potentially looking my way, and then i am not sure what i should be doing with my face to convey that "hey if you are looking at me, please don't bother to be expectant but it still hope you're having a nice day as possible in these WORK circumstances at this totally reasonable hour i am patronizing this shop at??" ↩︎

⁴ i mean it was not too uncomfortable, she only saw me for less than 10s and i was probably quite successful at playing it super cool! ↩︎