The Panic Buyer

New Year's Eve 2009 - I decided to go round to my local supermarket and pick up some nibbles for the Hogmanay festivities, my sisters magazine that she'd forgotten to buy, some tights and a general look about. It's one of those supermarkets that sells everything, DVD's, TV's, books, everything. Good for a browse. I thought it would be quiet and that I might even get a little peace and quiet to sit in the cafe and read with a cuppa and a bun. However, my plans were demolished as I got off the bus and saw that the car-park was almost full. This is something I've never seen before at this supermarket, even when the local football team play nearby. Trudging through the snow in my lovely boots, I began to dread what I was walking into. Surely all the owners of these cars were NOT inside the supermarket. They couldn't be. I collected a trolley from its little shelter and rattled it across the frozen, impacted snow to the entrance. The doors slid open and confirmed my worst nightmare...the place was heaving. To the right of the entrance is the area where you can buy cigarettes, a lottery ticket and it's where you pick up newspapers and magazines. So distracted was I by the wall of people inside the store, I forgot to turn right and pick up the magazine my sister had requested. Then of course I bumped into my Mum rifling through the half price clothing sale racks. I almost got past her but she looked up at the last moment. "Why is this place so busy?" I asked her. She didn't know and stuck her head back into the rows of cardigans and trousers. "OK, I'll do a bit of shopping and meet up with you." First place I fought myself into was the fruit section where I picked up a couple of apples and narrowly missed being run over by a woman with a big trolley as I tried to get a little bag to put them in. I dropped them into the trolley. Frowning, I forgot anything else I might have needed in the aisle and headed for the fresh meat section. Almost cleared out it was. I looked around. Limp steaks and grey chicken looked back at me. Forget that idea then. Mother appeared then holding a pair of trousers. She put them in the trolley. "I only came in for some beers for your Dad." Says she. I decided at that point that if she wanted alcohol for him now would be the best time to grab it. I told her to follow me and took off with my trolley weaving around people who were literally just standing there and past people with over-flowing trolleys. Just as we arrived at the beer I finally figured out what was going on. People were quite literally panic buying. Judging by what was in peoples trolleys they weren't buying for a Hogmanay party they were buying "just in case" they ran out of something on the one day that the supermarket was shut. Loaf upon loaf of bread, carton upon carton of milk. More than any of them would have bought on a normal weekly shop. Yet somehow they expected that they would use ten pints of milk in one day. I saw heaving trolleys passing by me as I waited for Mother to fight her way to the beer. I pondered on the mindset of this panic buying. I don't know what it's like in other countries, I'm sure it varies, but here in the UK most big supermarkets close on New Years Eve at about 8PM and open on January 2nd again meaning that they are closed for only one day. It seems that we are so used to this 24/7 lifestyle we have now where you can literally shop whenever you like (another local supermarket opens 24 hours a day and I know someone who does their shopping after midnight) so then when we're faced with only one day of closure we panic. What will we do without the shops being open? The Panic Buyer doesn't stop to think though. For example, at the end of my street there is a general grocers ran by an Asian family. It's open Christmas Day and New Years Day. There are shops like that all over the city. So if by chance I were to run out of milk on Christmas Day or New Years Day I could walk to the end of the street and pick up a pint. So could the Panic Buyer if they thought about it. When my Mother returned with the bottles of beer I was hit with the realisation that I had forgotten to pick up my sisters magazine. I was now on entirely the other side of the very busy supermarket. I got it for her though, fighting my way through the crowds again, having my foot run over and being banged into. The worst thing of all, the stuffed and breaded jalapeno's that I'd been thinking and salivating about all morning...were sold out...