Fear and Loathing at the Meat Counter

A recent social media post from a disgruntled supermarket customer claiming that “Last week I experienced the most awful and humiliating experience in a Tesco store” have sparked a litany of responses from other social media users stating that had all suffered far worse experiences in supermarkets. “When I find a Tweet which starts that way, I’m expecting to read about an ordeal of sordid degradation in the frozen foods section,” declared Twitter user ‘BigDickMick382’ in response. “Instead I found myself regaled with a sob story about being accused of shoplifting when the self service tills apparently didn’t register a payment via a mobile phone app.  There’s not even a suggestion that, as a punishment, the writer had a barcode stamped on their arse and was then forcibly scanned through every self-service checkout, with them all reading, in bold capitals: ‘SHOPLIFTER!’ Now that would have been humiliating!” ‘BigDickMick382’ went on to describe his own recent experience in his local supermarket where, he claimed, he had found himself thrown across the deli counter, his trousers pulled down and then indecently assaulted with a large marrow.  “Actually, it might have been a big cucumber, or a bunch of carrots, even,” he conceded. “I wasn’t really in a position to see it clearly and I just had to go on the way it felt as far as identifying the intruding object was concerned.” When he complained to the manager, he apparently found himself stripped naked, thrown on the conveyor belt at the tills and ravished by a band of nymphomaniac middle aged check out ladies.  “Well, I suppose that was compensation of sorts,” he says. “So I left it at that.”

The extraordinary experiences of ‘BigDickMick382’ are not unique, it seems. Writing on Facebook, Don Tweplow of Nottingham has described how, at a local budget supermarket, he found himself tied to a trolley, head in the basket, bared arse across the handle, then pushed around the store as he was successively spanked with a French loaf, a large German sausage, before finally being thrashed with a bunch of artichokes. “I really can’t think what sparked the incident, or even whether it was staff or fellow customers who were responsible,” he wrote. “I suppose it have had to do with that chap who I blocked from getting to the preserves shelf with my parked trolley, but it would seem to be rather an extreme reaction to such a minor infraction.” Another Facebook user recalled how, one Easter, he had found himself ‘crucified’ against the baked goods shelves and pelted with eggs. “This mob stripped me down to my underpants, then hurled dozens of medium brown eggs at me – I know what type they were because I was charged for them at the checkout,” he claimed. “I really don’t know what I’d done to deserve such treatment. I suppose it might have had something to do with me questioning the freshness of their fish, or maybe the fact that I managed to get the last tin of tomatoes in the tinned goods section. That bloke who was reaching for them did look pretty pissed off.”

Whilst these stories have been dismissed in most quarters as simply being the usual sort of user-generated nonsense found on social media, with critics pointing out that there had been no independent verification of any of these stories, this week the Daily Norks carried the headline, ‘Fear and Loathing at the Meat Counter’, chronicling a similar story from an individual in Slough. “One minute I was asking the guy behind the counter about his tender rump, the next thing I knew I was being slapped around the face with raw steaks,” fifty two year old Owen Clunk told the tabloid, recounting his experiences in a local supermarket. “It all escalated so quickly – I tried to run away from the meat counter and my assailants, but next thing I found myself being pursued through the aisles by furious people waving hams and big sausages. I’m pretty sure that they were all staff – I was in too much of a panic to check – but then other customers started joining the chase, hurling tinned goods and fresh fruit and vegetables at me and trying to block my escape route with their trolleys! Amazingly, I got to the doors without serious injury, even though they were hot on my heels by now! As the automatic doors slid shut behind me, I heard a huge thump and looked around to see that a huge wheel of cheese, hurled by one of the mob, had smashed against it!”

After getting back to his car and tearing away from the supermarket, fearing that he might be pursued by the supermarket’s delivery vans, Clunk reported the matter to the local police station, only to find himself being charged. “It was outrageous, the supermarket management claimed that I was a shoplifter and that they had merely been trying to apprehend me,” he told the newspaper. “Obviously it was all lies and they couldn’t substantiate it – I’d had to abandon my trolley at the meat counter so had none of their goods in my possession, so the police didn’t proceed with the charges. But the police didn’t pursue any investigation into what had really happened, saying that there was no evidence or witnesses to back up my story! Apparently, I should have asked for a receipt as proof of being terrorised!” But what is triggering these incidents and why do they seem to be becoming more frequent? Are they merely, as many commentators have suggested, merely cases of mass hysteria, brought on by the high-pressure, competitive nature of modern shopping, or is something more sinister afoot? “The fact that these outbreaks of extreme violence in the supermarket aisles involve both staff and customers, would seem to suggest that they are being ‘triggered’ by some sort of external stimulus – a chemical agent in the air conditioning, or some kind of ultra high sound signal over the tannoy,” speculates top conspiracy theorist Darren Schinkter. “It’s obviously all some sort of government mind-control experiment – the victims are those who are immune to control agent, so the others are programmed to kill them!”

Other theories advanced to explain these incidents have included ancient religious cults which have infiltrated the supermarkets – both staff and regular customers – and which are engaging in ritual ‘sacrifices’ of unsuspecting casual customers on the altar of retail consumerism, with idea of ensuring improved ‘crops’ of new goods, reduced prices and special offers every week. For Professor Bob Mincer of the Streatham Retail Studies Correspondence College, however, these incidents are merely an expression of normal consumer and employee frustrations. “Obviously, there’s been a degree of exaggeration in these reports – I doubt very much that anyone was ever really in fear of their lives. But I don’t doubt that, across the country, there have been extraordinary eruptions of anger in response to customer behaviours,” he opines from the lounge bar of his local pub. “I mean those bastards holding up the queue at the checkouts by trying to pay using their bloody phones is enough to move anyone to violence – I’ve come close to hurling my fresh fruit at a few of them myself. Just use cash or a debit card like a normal person!” He also contends that unreasonable customer behaviour could easily provide a trigger for overworked and underpaid supermarket staff. “If I was a shelf stacker and some pillock kept asking me where stuff was despite it being right in bloody front of them, I might be tempted to pull down their trousers and peg them with a sink plunger,” he says. “I mean, some of these bastards are just asking for it.”