A Year at Sainsbury's

My diary of weekly trips to Sainsbury's to do my shopping whilst my wife is abroad for a year!

SATURDAY 18 AUGUST 2007 - LETTUCE AFFRAY

There was a great item on the news recently - a man had got more than he bargained for when he bought a pack of Sainsbury's lettuce as inside was ... a lizard! This caused much mirth on Radio 2 where I heard it (the station for people of a certain age). Anyway, it sounded a bit of a long story but in the end the lizard went to a reptile collector and Sainsbury's visited him and gave him a replacement bag of lettuce, which was very big of them I thought. Funnily enough, the day after I heard this, a squashed beetly looking thing (dead and cooked) dropped out of my Sainsbury's bread as I was cutting it! Ordinarily I would be straight back to the store with it but I decided that if all you get for a lizard in a bag of lettuce is ... a bag of lettuce it probably wasn't worth it. So the beetle went into my brown friend outside the front door (it's been promoted from the back door) to await turning into compost or whatever they do with the mush that is collected once a week. Anyway, onto this week's shop. Once again I met some people I knew on the up escalator as I was going down. Perhaps the people I know only come out in the summer? Now, these two are 'neighbours' who we don't speak to. They have built themselves an old people's bungalow at the bottom of the garden and lied and cheated their way to getting a building built that was never approved by the local Council in the first place. It's taken forever and we've had to endure planning appeals, the Local Government Ombudsman, worry, frustration etc and it's all cost us a fortune. Meanwhile Lord & Lady Muck sit in their garden sipping their Sanatogen as though nothing has happened. So I did the usual 'staring and ignoring' routine at them as they trundled up the escalator. Believe you me I will get my revenge and it will be so sweet! Into the store. I bought some blueberries this week. In truth, I've been buying them for a while since 'elle' has returned from France and I noticed that the price sticker has £3.99 crossed through, £1.99 crossed through and then the real price of £1.49. As far as I can remember this has always been the case so it seems the illusion that we are getting a bargain is just that - the price always has been £1.49 and perhaps this is a ploy to make us thing that we are getting something on the cheap. Another e-mail to Sainsbury's perhaps? Perhaps not. Success! You will remember that I found a product with 4 reds and 1 orange on the wheel of death (health) and surmised that it would not be possible to find a product with 5 greens unless it was water? Well, this week I did indeed find a product with 5 greens - 'British Chicken Quick Cook Breast Steaks'. Needless to say I bought some immediately - a British product with 5 greens, how exciting is that! On to missing milk. As I turned into the milk area I saw 2 Sainsbury's lads hunched over a calculator type thing uttering words like 'we should have 5 of these' and 'where can they have gone' etc etc. I chatted to one of them later on and I found out that Sainsbury's can scan the bar code of any product into this little machine and it tells them how much stock they have! If you know how much is in the stockroom you can then work out how much should be on the shelves. How clever! And even more clever is that most of the time what they should have, they have, although when there is a discrepancy it is usually less stock than there should be probably due to shrinkage (theft to you and me). And I'm not surprised that there is less milk than there should be as it is a Saturday and the light fingered brethren amongst us would have been hard at work. Next, the Top Ten items. As you know I often look at the Top Ten board and today was no exception. But guess what was on there - Bernard Matthews turkey! It seems so long ago that I was giving BM a hard time in my diary following the bird flu scandal (Bernard Matthews turkeys - they're flootiful) and I can't remember what the outcome was. Were they guilty or not guilty? Whatever, Sainsbury's are obviously still stocking his mush masquerading as turkey and I'm delighted that it seems they are struggling to sell it and are having to put it on their Top Ten offers board to get it away. You will be pleased to hear I've stopped putting my vegetables into those clear little plastic bags and I now put them loose into my trolley. This gives me the opportunity to lay them out neatly on the checkout conveyor as though they are in a show waiting to be judged! I really must get out more. I was greatly excited by a banner offering 5p off petrol for the next few weeks but due to the excitement of the vegetable laying out I forgot to ask the cashier for my voucher. Damn, must remember next time. And next time or the time after may be the last of my Year at Sainsbury's ...

Items bought 29
Total cost £36.11
Cost per item £1.25
Checkout no 12
Nectar points 2761