People Watching

I had a random Sainsbury’s (other supermarkets are available) experience today.

I was merrily pushing my trolley whilst watching where I was going with one eye, and reading my shopping list with the other. Remarkably, I hadn’t chosen the trolley with the wonky wheel (I always manage to get that one), which enabled me to use my super double vision power to it’s best advantage. When I have to push and pull the trolley at the same time, I am in such a weakened state that one of the eyes has to give a little, so I tend to not look where I’m going. I write the shopping list for a reason, so that is where my attention goes.

However, today, I felt as though I was gliding through the aisles, stopping momentarily to reach for something off the shelf, out of the fridge, or out of the freezer.

I like to people watch when I get the chance. If it’s a hot summer’s day, and I’m sitting outside a shopping centre, I can watch the thousands of people walking by doing their own thing. With some, I make up stories for them. For others, I get the feeling that I recognise them but don’t know where from (I wrote about this in a recent post). But I can sit and watch for hours on end.

Today, I was shopping and not sitting. I was watching the other shoppers, but didn’t have time to make up any tales about them. A lady, who (and don’t quote me – I am hopeless with people’s ages) I would say was around sixty years old, was always in the aisle that I went into next, but she was walking in the opposite direction.

We passed each other about seven or eight times, when I noticed that she was smiling. The next time we passed each other, was by the checkouts. We weren’t queuing to pay just yet, she was heading for one of those ‘end of aisle’ shelves and I was heading to a different one. She came over to me, tapped me on the arm, and I was expecting her to say something along the lines of ‘we should really stop meeting like this’ or something similar. No. She said that I reminded her of Philip Glenister, and she couldn’t believe that he was shopping in Sainsbury’s. She asked if anyone had mentioned it to me before. I politely laughed and said ‘no’, and then continued my shopping wondering how on Earth I looked like Philip Glenister, when I don’t. I really don’t.

I suppose he must shop somewhere, having said that…

My thoughts then returned to the problem I have where I think that I know someone but don’t know if it is them or not because they are not in the place where I know them from. Other people must have a similar problem whereby they think that someone who doesn’t look like someone else looks like the person they think it is in their eyes.

People watching used to be so much easier than this…