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AIBU?

To have felt uncomfortable at this conversation at the checkout?

47 replies

bracken101 · 19/03/2014 22:19

Was buying a few things in Tesco, including condoms. The cashier asked me why I couldn't get them free on the NHS, I mumbled something about not being young enough. She then told me that she couldn't go on the pill so had had to use condoms but she always used to get them free, and something about how she had tried a coil but by this point I was really embarrassed and I think she noticed and stopped.

Am I a prude? Is it really fine to chat to strangers about your contraceptive choices?

OP posts:

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Only1scoop · 19/03/2014 22:22

Think I'd have been taken aback just a little

GroupieGirl · 19/03/2014 22:22

Ugh. No, definitely NBU. This is the kind of conversation I hope will happen to me when I'm in an arsey mood, but would only ever happen when in a socially-awkward-non-confrontational-scaredy-cat mood!

JonSnowIsAProperLover · 19/03/2014 22:24

I think supermarket staff have too chat to customers.

Maybe your tea bags and trifle didn't interest her?

To be fair, all checkout conversations make me uncomfortable. I wish they'd stop.

Wantsunshine · 19/03/2014 22:28

Tbf she probably got carried away and is cringing about it tonight.

Laquitar · 19/03/2014 22:28

I wouldn't mind. But then again i like any conversation about free stuff or bargains!

ineedsomeinspiration · 19/03/2014 22:34

Sorry but this did make me smile a bit. Sounds like some comedy sketch, I just have a vision of a queue of elderly upstanding members of the community standing behind tutting.
Yabu to have felt uncomfortable but I am pretty sure you can get them for free whatever age. I'm 32 and can get them from my local family planning clinic.

randomAXEofkindness · 19/03/2014 22:36

I wouldn't have minded this at all. I would also understand that there are other prudish people who would be mortified at this sort of conversation with a stranger so I wouldn't initiate it.

If you'd asked whether it was unreasonable for the cashier to ask you about your contraceptive choices, I would have said yes, unreasonable, obviously there are more appropriate topics of small-talk . But you asked whether you were unreasonable to feel so uncomfortable, and to that question, I'd have to say yes, you are unreasonable. She told you about her coil, what's the worst that could happen? Why should it make you uncomfortable?

You probably are a bit prudish, but it doesn't make you a bad person.

NoNoNoNoNoYabu · 19/03/2014 22:37

Urgh, yanbu

stiffstink · 19/03/2014 22:38

I got a bag full for free yesterday! First time ever! How exciting!

I am a very conservative 33 yr old who is thrilled by free condoms but I draw the line at that chitchat!

UncleT · 19/03/2014 22:38

Hell no, that's not acceptable! Even working on a checkout at 15 I knew that the only acceptable way forward is to calmly scan the damn condoms and not draw attention to them. It's really bloody rude to ask why you don't get them from the NHS. How's about this - because I CHOSE to come in here and buy them, obviously.

bumperella · 19/03/2014 22:38

I fear you may suffer from "sympathetic face syndrome". Do you know unusual amounts about the emotional lives of people sharing public transport with you, too? Yup, thought so. Comes of looking like a nice approachable person.

NeedsAsockamnesty · 19/03/2014 22:39

You don't have to be young to get them for free. GUM clinics hand them out to older people as well.

itsmeitscathy · 19/03/2014 22:40

YANBU

I bought face scrub a few weeks ago and the cashier told me it's the only thing that stops her breaking out when she has her period. I wanted to run from the shop, I think I would have cried in your situation.

So, YANBU, some things are fine to discuss with friends but best left unsaid at the checkout.

NeedsAsockamnesty · 19/03/2014 22:41

Sorry missed the point a bit there.

It wouldn't bother me much,but I was mortified the day I had to buy a copy of a certain newspaper (for a neighbour during snow) and someone I knew was stood behind me.

HiImBarryScott · 19/03/2014 22:41

Some people share more than they have to. After yesterdays chat with my son's teacher, I now know that her husband has had a vasectomy!!!

anothermrssmith · 19/03/2014 22:41

Must be a Tesco thing, when husband I were trying to conceive I was buying a pregnancy test in there and the cashier asked if it was 'a good thing' or not. And in another branch I was asked if I was leaking badly when buyig breast pads. I will talk to anyone about anything but draw the line at whether or not I want to be pregnant and leaking boobs with strangers!

As pp has said already, she was probably kicking herself the minute you walked away.

justasmallone · 19/03/2014 22:42

Checkout staff cant win

WanderingAway · 19/03/2014 22:43

I dont see what was wrong with it. She was letting you know where you can get something for free. I love a bargain

FunkyBoldRibena · 19/03/2014 22:47

'Actually love, I'm using them to smuggle heroin so get a wiggle on eh?'

JonSnowIsAProperLover · 19/03/2014 22:49

The other day I was asked in Tesco if I still lived on XXXX street.

No, I hadn't for about 8 years.

She remembered me, remembered I had a missing pet, knew which house I had lived at.

I had no idea who she was.

Yes, I was mildly scared.

Don't think she commented on my shopping though.

bracken101 · 19/03/2014 22:50

You are probably right and she was just making conversation, I just wondered if I was the only one who would feel uncomfortable, but I'm not the only one so I feel better.

I will investigate the free condoms! We are fairly rural so I'm not sure where I can get them but remember the gp telling me after I was 25 I no longer could from them.

( I do get a lot of people sharing things with me, for some reason!, but usually i find it quite funny, not sure why not this time, but perhaps because it was my shopping being shared)

OP posts:

bracken101 · 19/03/2014 22:51

Actually the couple before me in the queue were buying a stair gate and she said her son had reached 30 without dying, so perhaps it was more of a ' in my day...'

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starfishmummy · 19/03/2014 22:56

I got the comments when I bought a pregnancy test too. I was following the "advice"to do a test and not just to assume that a lack of periods was due to the menopause; so I just sort of smiled and said nothing.

Fefifo · 19/03/2014 23:05

YABU, always good to be told you can get something free and the cost of condoms is obscene!!

DH gets ours free from work but had run out one weekend so he wanted to put some in with the weekly shop. I saw the price and told him we'd wait until Monday, no bloody way were they going to make such a dent in my gin and ice cream family treats budget.

YouTheCat · 19/03/2014 23:14

You have told her you were getting the extra large ones.

Or maybe extra thick for bum sex?

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