Food for Thought

Food for Thought

I don’t often frequent my local supermarket, I say ‘local’, it’s actually a 30-minute drive from here so I tend to use the markets of which we have several in the area, and all within a 5 – 10 minute drive away. These, for me are the real ‘Super Markets’ with an abundance of fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and fresh fish too. The fruit and vegetables are not only fresh, but unlike my recollections of the UK, they come in all shapes and sizes, long ones, thin ones, knobbly ones too and bursting with flavour.

However, there a few things which the supermarket have that I need occasionally and last week I made the effort to go into town and visit this Aladdin’s Cave of goodies. On entering, a man in a white coat accosted me by thrusting bunch of carrier bags at me. He never spoke, just glared at me. As it happens, I knew what it was all about as I have seen this many times over the past few years, he was from a local charity that has regular collections of food in larger shops and markets for the various food banks around the area, however, none of this was forthcoming from him; everyone was expected to know all about it, supposedly!

Having completed my inspection of the overwhelming amount of articles on display, I made my way to the checkout, complete with the half a dozen items I specifically came for together with my usual two carrier bags full of various food items for the charity’s collection, something I have done for a few years now whenever I come across one of these collection points.

Whilst standing in the queue, I noticed a little old lady at the front paying for her purchases. As she left the till, I noticed her struggling with her shopping bag and a walking frame. She then approached the morose man in the white coat, opened her bag and was obviously offering him something from it for the collection, to my horror the man simply pointed to a point yards away from the checkout expecting her to struggle along with her walking frame to deposit her offering in a large skip type receptacle. By this time, my blood was boiling.

When it was my turn to pay, I placed everything on the moving belt making sure my articles went on first. As the cashier checked each item, I place it in my trolley making sure to leave all 15 items for the collection on the desk. I paid the bill and then beckoned to the man in the white coat, as he approached I said these are for you Sir, to which he replied, “You’ll have to take them down to there”. Is that so? I said, do you want me to get you coffee while I down there? I suppose you’re worn out handing out all those empty carrier bags. With that, I promptly left the store, leaving him struggling with various packets of rice, pasta, bottles of olive oil, etc.

What on earth makes a person like that offer to help a charity when he can refuse to help an elderly woman struggling with shopping and a walking frame? In my 70+ years, I thought I’d seen everything, but this certainly takes the biscuit.

Until next time…………………….

Paul Petulengro

 

Category: Blog