5.11 /// Dodging Holiday Craziness: A Quick Shopping Errand Gone Awry..

Ever had a simple shopping trip turn into a comedy of errors? That's exactly what happened when I set out on a mission for nacho ingredients, only to find myself swept up in a whirlwind of pre-Halloween and Christmas chaos. Picture me, an introvert at heart, dodging holiday-crazed shoppers and navigating unexpected road closures that sent my plans spiraling. It’s a tale of thwarted plans and unexpected laughs as I reminisce about shopping experiences in the UK versus the US, where places like Wawa and Five Below still hold a special place in my heart. 

Tune in for a relatable rant about the trials of holiday shopping. From aisles jam-packed with festive items in August to a memorable encounter with an oblivious fellow shopper, the day was anything but relaxing. And let’s not forget the members of the public who topped off my experience, pushing my patience to its limits. For anyone who’s ever felt the holiday shopping stress or just needs a good laugh, this episode is your backstage pass to my day of unexpected hurdles and humorous reflections.

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Chapters

• 0:01 Shopping Woes and Rants
• 11:57 Early Holiday Madness

Transcript

Stephen: 0:01

Hello and welcome to Infinite Prattle today. Today's episode might get a little bit ranty. It's about Halloween, christmas and my troubles going shopping today. So stay with me. Hello and welcome to Infinite Prattle. Unscrupted, unedited prattle on everything Hosted by me. Stephen, listen, like, share, subscribe and enjoy the show.

Stephen: 0:42

Oh, I just had a massive mouthful of. Well, it's fake pepsi. I'm not gonna beat around the bush, it's not real pepsi, it's uh little. Or lidl, or however we say it lidl um, you know the, the competitor aldi, it's their fake freeway. Um, pepsi max imitation, it's not too bad, but it isn't pepsi max. Come at Freeway. Pepsi Max Imitation, it's not too bad, but it isn't Pepsi Max. Come at me, pepsi.

Stephen: 1:11

Anyway, how the hell are you lot? Are you doing well? Are you feeling good? I hope you're feeling better than me.

Stephen: 1:16

I've had a terrible day. I'm recording this the day it goes out. Meant to do it yesterday, but you know, as long as you guys get it roughly when I tell you, suppose that's all that matters. So, yes, it's Sunday, the 20th today, and I've had a bit of a nightmare today and I'm feeling very ranty. So if this gets ranty, you know, I'm kind of, I'm kind of like, kind of warning you now. So here's like a as a warning for you. Now it's a warning for you. Now it's a warning. This may get ranty, it's likely to, oh Jesus.

Stephen: 1:54

So I started out today to go shopping. The Eagles play tonight I think it's the New York Giants we've got tonight. So Sarah's not here. She's still in hospital. She's good. So thanks for the messages. She's doing well. She hopefully will come out at the end of this week, but yeah.

Stephen: 2:13

So I decided I'm going to make some football food. I've had stuff bought for a few days for stew as well. So the plan was this morning is to pop out quickly and buy stuff for making nachos and you know, buy some milk and maybe a bit of bread and stuff, you know some essentials and then come back and make my stew and then have a late lunch and then be able to eat the nachos later on during the game and that'd be my meals for the day. Not particularly healthy with the nachos, but the stew I'm making is pretty good. So we have a little shop next door, a little convenience store for you American guys, and it's like a petrol station and a convenience store and they're pretty well stocked, but it's a little bit more expensive. You know you're paying for that convenience on you the other day.

Stephen: 3:05

So I thought I'm not gonna go there and buy the nachos and I'm not gonna go and buy the salsa and stuff. I was gonna make my own salsa, but I'm lazy today. I thought I'm making the stew. I'll buy some pre-made salsa, dip or whatever. Um well, it's time for sniffing and grunting. Then that was terrible. I sometimes forget that you're hearing this right in your ears. That's how listening works.

Stephen: 3:34

Yeah, so I decided to pop out. I thought I might go to two places. I may go to two places, but I'll go to one place I've not been for a while. It's like one of these shops where they sell discounted things, things you don't normally get elsewhere, like limited offers and stuff like that. But generally they sell stuff for nachos, like they sell the crisps and they sell generally sell the dips and I thought if I can't get all the stuff, I'll settle for like a minimum amount. So my minimum requirement for nachos is cheese, like nachos, like doritos or something like that.

Stephen: 4:10

Um, salsa I be homemade or not and sour cream and guacamole. I can do without sour cream, but it is good, but you've got to have guacamole and salsa, you know, and jalapenos as well, and I can do without jalapenos. So my minimum is guacamole, salsa and nachos and the cheese on top. But I wanted today it definitely wasn't the guacamole, and if I could push it to sour cream then I was going to go there and I noticed my jalapenos were off, so I was going to buy some more to replace them. They'd gone a bit weird in the water. They'd been open for a while so there was things floating in the water. They smelled okay, but I didn't really trust them. So yeah, so I thought I'll just pop out in that shop. They'll have everything. They'll have everything. They haven't been there for a while as well, so it's always a good little shop to wander around.

Stephen: 5:09

You. You get these little bargains. Sometimes you get electronic bargains and weird things you would never pick up anywhere else. You know it's been like. I think the shop I can compare it to in america would be kind of like well, I've only got philadelphia to compare to, but there was a place called uh, you got a wah-wah basically which sells a bit of. It's like a bit of wah-wah combined with a five below. I don't have a five below, it's still a thing. I loved that shop though. It was brilliant, but basically like a five below across from Wawa, but obviously the prices are not just five dollars or less. Erm, yeah, so it's quite a. It's quite a cool little shop, but it's nearly Halloween and apparently it's nearly Christmas, so it was really busy in there.

Stephen: 5:49

For one thing and I'll get to that in a minute my problem with that and I'm not an introvert Sometimes I am Like I don't mind people. Maybe I'm not going to leave it till later, but I just don't like it when people are rude. There's no need to be rude, is there? And that's all I've had today when I've been out just rudeness, absolute rudeness, and people just like focused on what they want to do and and just stopping right in front of you, being on the phones, and when you ask, when you say excuse me, they look at like you piece of shit. It's like, well, I need to get past, like you literally stood in the middle of the aisle. Like I always try and do if I need to stop, I'll tuck myself away, or if I'm looking at something, I'll try and tuck myself away. Yeah, just a lot of rudeness today.

Stephen: 6:34

So the first shop I went into was a shop called Home Bargains. It used to be called Home and Bargains and I believe there are still some shops called Home and Bargains out there and I believe it's still the same chain of shops, but I don't know why some of them are called Home Bargains and some are called Home and Bargain. I have no idea, and I think it's the same shop. It's very bizarre, anyway. Yeah, so I went in there and they had bugger. All all they had was nachos. You know what? I ended up having to go to like three or four other shops. So I should have just gone to the shop. I should have just left it, because they weren't even that good nachos, to be honest. But I put them in the basket.

Stephen: 7:11

I thought I'm in here and I picked up something I didn't really need. What else did I get from there? I can't even remember. I picked up a couple of things that weren't on my shopping list. So the things on my shopping list were like nachos, salsa, guacamole, sour cream, milk and anything else nacho related, really anything extra you could get jalapenos and stuff, and so I ended up getting one thing off my list from that and I thought, well, I'm gonna have to go to another shop anyway. Now, definitely, I'm gonna have to go Lidl. I can get everything else from Lidl, brilliant.

Stephen: 7:41

Went to Lidl no, no, so I might just get. Oh, I might just get stock cubes, that's what I needed. Went to Lidl no, no, so I might just get stock cubes, that's what I needed from there. So I've got stock cubes For some reason. That's why I've gone. Funny, we bought a load at one point and I think they've just been open far too long, like exposed, so I had to throw them away tomorrow. So I've replaced all the stock cubes. So, literally in in Lidl, that's all of what was stock cubes and this fake pepsi.

Stephen: 8:06

So third shop uh, I had to stop off at Costa Coffee on the way, so it's like a chain coffee store in Britain. I think they have it in America now because it's now owned by, uh, coca-cola, so they may have it in America now. Um, so I stopped there for a coffee because people were annoying me, because in Lidl it was the same. In fact it was worse. I had to tell the guy to get away from me because he was like eyeing me up and not in a good way. I feel like he was gonna pickpocket me and I had to literally tell him to step away from me, which was really awkward and I was in a bit of a bad mood. But he was literally stood right over my shoulder, looking down at my body kind of thing, as if he was looking at my. I had my hands in my pockets and it looked like he was trying to look in my pocket. I don't know, it was just a weird situation.

Stephen: 8:56

That was while I was buying coffee. Oh, I bought coffee. I was buying coffee. That's what I bought from there as well, so it wasn't a complete waste of time going there, but I just couldn't get everything from the same shop, so left there, after having a trouble at the till as well. Some two people just pushed in front of me at the till and then just completely ignored me when I was trying to confront them about it and I was just like you know what, I can't deal with it, so I just leave it. And then there was a woman behind me trying to put stuff on the conveyor belt when there was no room, trying. There was a woman behind me trying to put stuff on the conveyor belt when there was no room, trying to push my stuff out of the way when there was no room and I was like you need to wait.

Stephen: 9:27

I was like, oh my God, today's just oh Jesus. Like I hate to bang on about it, but COVID-19 kind of seemed to bring us together. We realised what we had. We missed people. Oh, be kind to people, don't be selfish. Blah are Christ, almighty. Today's been a lesson in. You need to remember what you were going through then, because I'm just. No one was nice. Literally the only person that was nice was when I got me coffee and the guy serving me and I think I brought his day down by mentioning what was going on. So I felt a bit bad for that and I apologise to him.

Stephen: 10:05

So, yeah, I had to go to a third shop. It was a place called Tesco's, which I think they may have. They have them around the world. I'm not sure they have them in America. It's a very, very big, big supermarket in Britain which is very similar to like Asda, which is owned by Walmart. So just a big supermarket chain. So I ended up going there, managed to get the rest of my stuff I needed quite quickly actually, so I was quite pleased straight back in the car, but it was dear, and the only idea of me going out this morning was, instead of going next door where it's a little bit more pricey, like, instead of going to say, that first shop where the nachos were like, I think, a pound or 75p or something like that next door they'd be like maybe maybe twice the amount of money, maybe one pound, fifty two pound, because they generally only sell like the main brands, which are always dear anyway.

Stephen: 10:58

Yeah, so the idea was to save money by not driving around Crewe today, which is the place I live, and I end ended up I probably got, all in all, I got three packs of I can't even do it in this episode, it's me shopping. I got three packs of stock cubes coffee, fake Pepsi, refried beans, guacamole, sour cream, jalapenos, nachos, these weird brioche things that like pizzas, which are very tasty. I've just had one. I shouldn't have bought them, but I thought, sod it. Did I say coffee, coffee, I didn't say coffee. So what? Like? Less than 12 items. It took me two hours, two goddamn hours, to get less than 12 items. What the hell? And you know the reason for it. Do you know why? I think, especially the first shop, home Bargains. Love you, respect to you, shopped there for years.

Stephen: 11:57

You can get some cracking stuff always a good go-to place if you needed like a cheap cable, some cheap headphones, you know, some stuff for your car or stuff like that. They sell a bit of everything and they're great when seasonal stuff comes out, but they had christmas stuff in. A month ago, maybe more than a month ago, I popped in for something for work. I just popped in for some biscuits for work. I just wanted a selection of biscuits taken for a meeting. Um, in fact that might have been the end of August.

Stephen: 12:23

They started getting Christmas stuff in before the Halloween stuff and Literally the first two aisles the first back of the back of the shop is where they put that home stuff in and all that stuff but they've pushed all like the normal aisles. They've had to condense the normal aisles to allow for all the Christmas stuff and Halloween stuff. That's like two or three aisles of Halloween stuff. There must be four or five aisles of Christmas stuff and Christmas confectionery and stuff like that and I think that's why I couldn't get the stuff, because I feel like they've gone. You know what? We don't have to stock salsa, that's a summer thing we don't have to stock sour cream. That's a summer thing. No one's going to be eating Mexican food in this weather and I genuinely feel that's why it is. And the same with Lidl as well. Their stock is quite hit and miss sometimes anyway.

Stephen: 13:18

But yeah, I'm stressed and furious with people and road rage and there's loads of road closers and crew. I told you this would be a ranting. Then there's loads of road closings in crew. I told you this would be a ranting episode. There's loads of road closings in crew. So, yeah, basically two hours to get the stuff I needed for for some nachos, which is a simple dish, and then that's put my schedule off today and I hate that. I hate that. I hate my schedule going out.

Stephen: 13:40

The idea was like planned in my head. I was like right, leave at 11, I'll be back by like quarter to 12. I'll cut all the veg up, right, I can put the stew on. Should be ready by about three for, you know, for an initial taster, maybe, maybe, maybe half three. Well, I can have some, I can have a late lunch. That's fine, eat that. Um, football games doesn't start till six. So you know, maybe do me nachos at half time, which is by eight o'clock, that's five hours after I've been last eaten. That's kind of perfect. Um, yeah, two hours, two hours. I'm like behind two hours. So, uh, I came straight in.

Stephen: 14:18

Um, I've already ran into my wife as well. She's she's, she's had both barrels ranting. I feel sorry for her really. She, she listens to me moan about stuff a lot and I've always been. She listens to me moan about stuff a lot and I've always been a bit of a moaner and it's not really my personality. I like I suppose it is a little bit Contradicting myself is part of my personality. I'm sure you know if you're a long time listener, I'm sure you've heard me go back and forth in my own brain Thanks, brain, yeah. But I think my own brain, thanks, brain, yeah. But I think I just I don't understand people and I think that's the thing you know when you're out and you just think Like, for example, I was in another supermarket called Sainsbury's very similar to like Tesco's and stuff, big supermarket chain in Britain and there's a woman walking with a trolley and I was like going across the store and she's going up and down the aisles and I knew where I had to go.

Stephen: 15:12

So I'm in the center of the store trying to go across the aisles. So I let her go because I'm thinking, oh, you want to cross, like I'm. I'm kind of contra flow to the traffic in my brain. I don't think people think like this in supermarket, but I I do. So she wants to cross. So I'm thinking, well, it's polite, anyway, I'm a gentleman, she's a lady with a trolley, so I go. Would you like to go in front of me? So she goes oh, thank you very much. I go oh, how pleasant, because people have been dickheads that day as well. So she pushes the trolley and stops directly in front of me Like just blocks my path, gets her phone out and starts texting someone or whatever.

Stephen: 15:50

So I stood there for about 10 or 15 seconds Like staring at her, thinking she'll realise in a second. She did not. So I was like, excuse me, I need to. I was letting you walk. The idea was you walk across, can I go? And she was like oh, sorry, I didn't realise. And I'm thinking how I really wanted to say it. I have to keep loads of stuff in because I think I'd be arrested, to be honest, because I would just blow up on people. And I was thinking to myself how can you not understand? I wasn't allowing you to. I wasn't allowing you to, I wasn't letting you go so you could stand in front of me.

Stephen: 16:26

I don't get it. I don't get it and I have to verbalise it. I have to verbalise my annoyance and that's how I get it out and that's how I don't actually go on a murderous rampage, I think. But today's been like that for everyone. I've not met one nice person today, because even the woman at the till in Lidl was a bit annoying as well. She was just throwing the stuff at me and I know she has a job to do and they're told to be quick, and but it's just like, don't start serving the next person before.

Stephen: 16:53

I've like moved, like it's just rude, like, and she was pleasant enough, but it's just like, ah, customer service has gone out the window, people's just general manners has gone out the window. Like I'd feel mortified if I genuinely like stopped anyone. Like I was listening to music and someone had asked to get past me and I hadn't noticed them say it, and I was like oh sorry, I've got my headphones on, apologies, kind of thing, you know. And they just gave me a filthy look and I thought, well, I can't do much more than say sorry and I've got nowhere else to stand because I'm yeah.

Stephen: 17:25

But I think the point is of that is that Halloween and Christmas start so early. Like what the hell? Like it's getting earlier every year, like, like what month is it? It's October, yeah, october the 20th. So it's like two months till two months until Christmas. Um eight weeks I can start forgiving some of the Christmas stuff going out. Now, like I know commerce and you know and that's how business works, you know you're getting stuff in people's brains and the longer it's out, the longer you can, you know, sell to people. But I literally saw Christmas stuff in August. It's still technically summer in Britain, you wouldn't know it, but it was still certainly summer when they're putting the Christmas stuff out, and I just think you might as well't know it, but it was still steadily summer window and they're putting the Christmas stuff. I just think you might just have out all year round, jim, the miles will just be a permanent section of the supermarket which is just Christmas and I've got nothing, don't? I'm not screwed.

Stephen: 18:18

I actually like Christmas, especially since being with Sarah, I think I've kind of got out the whole Christmas thing. You know, generally working on the railway as I do, christmas doesn't really mean a lot. It's just another day for working um, it's you're rostered to work it and and that's pretty much it. And I've unfortunately never been lucky enough to actually be given the chance to be off at Christmas. Um, I've always had to be in um or on call, which is beautiful, um, so, apart from last year, I think last year is probably the first time in a long time that I didn't have to do like on call or or being at christmas. So that was lovely. Um, this christmas won't be the same, but I think. I think for me, like I got out, like christmas thing didn't didn't always I didn't I stopped getting out of putting a big tree up and just had a small tree and so I lived alone. You know what I mean. Um, so when I got, we got with sarah she, she loves christmas and I like kind of like reinvigorated my, my love for christmas as well, because I've always been a big christmas person.

Stephen: 19:15

Halloween not so much, I don't really get it. I love a good halloween party, you know. It's great for dressing up, I think. What halloween's good for, I think, is cosplay if you. If you like cosplaying I mean now with all Comic Con and all that geek stuff really exploding I suppose it means a bit less in that way, but that's what it was always.

Stephen: 19:35

For me, it was a chance to do a bit of cosplay. I had a Halloween party when I first moved into my first house, my bachelor pad. It was a great excuse for me to buy a boiler suit and I made my own cosplay of Venkman from the Ghostbusters and it looked pretty good. Actually, I must admit I feel like it went all right. I made the neutrino wand and a trap out of cardboard and spray-painted it. It was a bit of shit, but you know, people could tell what it was and people seemed marginally impressed. It was a a little crafting thing for me as well, past the time, um, but yeah, I think I think for me that's more what it's about.

Stephen: 20:13

It's more like oh, halloween's just an excuse to dress up, go to it, go to a party and dress up, um, rather than celebrating all hallows eve. And I couldn't even tell you the history of that. So maybe I should look that up and expand my knowledge. But Christmas they all just lose meaning eventually. I think Christmas doesn't have a meaning for me religiously. It's time off, potentially, and it's having a delicious meal, which you don't really. You know being gluttonous. Don't really do that big sort of christmas spread any other time in the year, um, and it's the delight of maybe seeing family and friends a bit more often, because it's they use that. We use that as an excuse, don't we? It's christmas or you might not see people again. That comes under the whole be kind thing. I think you know we should just do that anyway, shouldn't we? Um, we should just want to see people, um, we should, oh, dear, um. Yeah, but that's it's just stressed me out today, so I'm sorry I've unloaded on you all today.

Stephen: 21:28

Normal episode will resume next week with hopefully no ranting. I may record next week's. Now actually, I feel like more role and I have an idea in my head, so you know, but yes, I will leave it there. So what do you think about Christmas and Halloween and stuff? Do you celebrate it? Do you like the fact all the stuff's in store so early now that you can prepare and stock up, or do you think it gets a bit too much and you know it should be like a few weeks out where it gets all the stuff gets put out. I'm trying to think when I was a kid, like how soon it got put out, and in my brain it was was like end of November time when it kind of exploded. I may be wrong, I may be wrong, um, but yeah, let me know what you think.

Stephen: 22:14

And, um, do you think people are ruder? Do you think people have got, have lost their manners, like recently? I did an episode of this a while ago about people's manners and and courtesy and stuff, and today's been a bad example for me, uh, about that. So well, thank you very much for joining me. Anyway, do all the usual stuff that you'd like to do to support the show. You can text me as well. Now, text me directly. I can't reply, but if you've got any ideas, you can text me. Or I just want to say thank you or, you know, give me a compliment or some tips or feedback or anything that you can do that, or you can contact me via social media. And, yeah, thank you very much for listening. Take care and remember, keep prattling. You've been listening to Infinite Drattle. Thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, go back and listen to some others and please continue to listen. Your support is much appreciated. Please like, share, comment and subscribe, and I'll speak to you all again soon. Take care.