Shopping at Christmas

Yesterday I went to Tesco. I should have thought about it and not gone, but we needed to replenish the alcohol stocks for Christmas as the in-laws are coming over, and I thought I could pick up some light bulbs and Christmas crackers as well. Now, I know that supermarkets have several reasons for keeping all the drinks far from the front door - risk of theft, the hope that as people wander round the shop they will get distracted and buy something else too, not to mention the pretence of relevance which they maintain by keeping 'seasonal items' by the front door - but as far as I am concerned, any place where you are expected to put eggs in your trolley before you get 4 cases of Bow is severely misunderstanding good shopping practice. So, savvy shopper that I am, I loaded up with booze which I then delicately accessorised with a light sprinkling of fruit and veg in order to give the impression that I am not a raging alcoholic. Then I searched for the light bulbs - I started in 'Household Goods', checked the aisle-end displays in case they were hidden there, took a brief spin round the pet food aisle, and then cracked and asked a member of staff. 'They're over by the entrance, in the non-food section where the electrical items are'. I had not realised that light bulbs now came under the heading of 'electrical items', but by this point I wanted to jam light bulbs in my eyeballs, so I just said 'I'll kill myself if I have to go over there again - fuck it, we'll have Christmas in the dark.' If I see her again on one of my many fun jaunts to Tesco, I will apologise as she looked as though she was scared I was going to just abandon my trolley and collapse in a quivering, crying heap. But I pressed on, unsuccessfully trying to make small talk with the surly checkout lady, wrestling my over burdened trolley back to the car and realising only when I got home that I hadn't got the buggering crackers either...