Explaining shopping to an alien
Hands up who loves grocery shopping? The scramble to find your reusable bags, the gentle whir in your brain as you mentally picture the shopping list you’ve left at home, the will power to avoid the confectionery aisle.
But if you had to actually explain how a supermarket actually works to, say, a newly arrived alien from outer space, you start to realise its myriad complexities. It’s a battlefield of awkward encounters, where even the most mundane task can go wrong in a million tiny, humiliating ways.
So, if you’re newly arrived ET or Marvin the Martian and you need to top up your essentials, here are some quick tips to start you off.
1. Entering the store
The first challenge: don’t walk in through the exit and vice versa unless you mind getting rapped on the knees by the swinging metal barrier.
2. The Trolley Shuffle
You need a token or coin to use it (ask for a token as you probably don’t have ready access to earthling currency). You can be sure you’ll pick that one rogue trolley standing in your way like a bouncer at a nightclub. You give it a little push, only for it to reveal itself as the squeaky one that tracks heavily to the left. Now you’re stuck sounding like you’re riding a rusty bicycle through the frozen food aisle, drawing attention with every turn.
3. The Awkward Aisle Dance
There’s a special kind of awkward reserved for when you and another shopper meet head-on in an aisle. You both do the obligatory polite smile and try to move aside—but wait, you step in the same direction. So does the other person (or visiting alien). Now you’re in a ridiculous back-and-forth dance, neither of you able to break the unspoken rule of, “You go first.” (Also, entirely impossible to explain unspoken rules to aliens). After five seconds that feel like five years, one of you just gives up and pretends to be fascinated by a random jar of pickles. This scenario is the opposite of when you actually bump into someone you know but have no time to chat, then see them again in aisles four and seven.
4. Self-Checkout or Self-Sabotage?
Martians beware: If you choose the self-checkout lane, you’ve entered a zone where every simple task becomes inexplicably difficult. There’s an unspoken pressure to “perform” here: Suddenly, scanning bananas feels like you’re disarming a bomb. You can’t find the barcode on the bread, and the machine’s voice keeps saying, “Please place item in the bagging area.” It’s in the bagging area, Karen, I swear!
And be careful to avoid eye contact as everyone in the queue is silently judging how fast you’re scanning. Totally usual behaviour.
5. The fresh food - Judge Me Not
The fruit and veg section is where judgment is everywhere. Picking the perfect avocado is a skill only a chosen few possess. You squeeze one, put it back. Squeeze another, shake your head. It’s a delicate balance—too soft and you’re looking at guacamole today, too firm and it’s a brick for the next week. All the while, you feel the eyes of fellow shoppers judging your avocado selection technique. It’s a toss-up between the sheepish eye-contact camaraderie and total downcast-eyed avoidance.
Plus, the plastic fresh produce bags can be challenging. You’re standing there, fingers rubbing the edge of the bag like you’re trying to perform a magic trick, but it’s not happening. Hopefully, our inter-stellar visitor has suction pads on its fingers (digits, whatever), to avoid all this palaver.
6. The Car Park Purge
You’ve finally made it out of the store without staff bearing down on you demanding bag inspections, and now you’re pretending you totally remember where you parked your flying saucer. A public holiday’s coming up and spots are at a premium, which means the slowly circling cars are fighting for your space. You awkwardly wave them off, only to realize you’ve been walking in the wrong direction and your saucer is parked on another level.
I’d love to think that somewhere in another universe, green skinned creatures with three arms and thirty fingers are grappling with their own version of a supermarket. Either way, it’s the perfect place for Marvin et al to really get to grips with humanity.