Panic at the supermarket

I was appalled on Saturday afternoon to see how quickly (as Mo put it), the 'veneer of humanity cracked and fell apart'. I was shopping at my local supermarket which is within a small suburban mall when the fire alarm went off while I was perusing the avocados. For a few moments everyone carried on shopping, hoping it was a false alarm, but then the announcements came over the tannoy: "Everyone leave the store. Do not take your trolleys with you", and the mayhem broke out. By the time I got to the mall area where all the shops were rapidly shutting up and ejecting shoppers I decided that I had no time to wait (with guests arriving for a barbecue in just over an hour) and I would hop in my car and go to the supermarket in the neighbouring suburb.

No such luck. The travelator down to the carpark had stopped moving and the trolleys on it at the time were locked into the steel floor and moving nowhere. The crowd had backed up to the mall and was in a foul mood. I saw people pushing and shoving to try and get past the shoppers on the travelator. Old ladies were shoved sideways. One persons microwave oven was pushed of their trolley and landed on the steel with a thud. I decided to have nothing to do with the crowd heading for the car park so I went the other way, out of the main door to the street and rung John who came and got me and within 10 minutes I was peacefully shopping in Foodtown. We headed back later in the afternoon to reclaim my abandoned car.

Forget the 'Uncouth' shoppers' though, and watch our PM's appearance on Letterman where he lists the top 10 reasons to come to NZ... I agree with Nik's view, our PM looks like a schoolboy who has been hauled up on stage to answer questions by the headmaster.

The rest of the weekend was enjoyable, with Tamsin staying for a few days and friends over for our first barbie of the summer. I also played quite a few games of Alhambra, the current favourite board game of choice.