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Original poster

Supermarket triggers. Leave The Bananas Alone!!

237 replies

TrippingOverMyAssets · 21/11/2025 07:48

This really triggers me and drives me absolutely mad. I can’t stand people excessively touching and handling fruit they have no intention of buying. Every time I am in the supermarket and I go to buy some bananas, I always just pick up the first bunch that look almost ripe, are a nice colour and look undamaged, then put them in my basket and walk away. Even if one is a little damaged I just eat that one first. Job done.

But time and time again the display is being body blocked by one person and their trolley while a queue builds up behind them, usually by someone of a certain age demographic removing every single bunch from the stand and inspecting them individually, prodding and poking them then putting them back.

Are you buying them or making love to them? Stop prodding and poking them all ffs! Other people have to buy those and they don’t want your hands all over them squeezing them and poking them.

No other supermarket fruit goes through this undignified ritual of prodding and poking then being put back on the shelf. It’s so unhygienic and rude. Just leave the bananas alone if you don’t want them! Other people have to buy those after you’ve finished messing about with them!

OP posts:
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TroysMammy · 02/12/2025 08:31

ClairDeLaLune · 21/11/2025 10:29

My mum breaks the stalks off broccoli so they weigh less and therefore cost less!

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You can eat the stalk too.

PennyRest · 01/12/2025 02:35

I saw a man poking steaks in Sainsburys and apparently watching to see how fast they rose again. I wish I’d thought to ask why.

JaceLancs · 01/12/2025 02:05

I don’t buy or eat bananas but check all food to see if it meets my exacting standards!’
Not just sell by/use by dates but fat contact for meat, evenness and freshness of fruit and veg etc

Strawberrydelight78 · 01/12/2025 01:28

TrippingOverMyAssets · 21/11/2025 09:31

Last night was a good example of how unnecessary this is. Popped into the Co Op on the way home because I needed just a couple of bananas for this morning and an older man was stood in front of the banana stand oblivious to the woman already waiting behind him waiting to get to the shelf.

I then joined behind her and we both watched as the man ran his hand all the way along all the remaining loose bananas on the top shelf rolling them all in his hand one at a time and then putting them back, while actually looking down at the bagged ones on the middle shelf. He wasn’t even looking at the ones he was touching. Then he picked a bagged bunch from the middle shelf and put them in his basket.

So why the needless ritual of prodding and poking all the others? This is what I’m talking about. People mindlessly poking them about when they don’t even intend to buy them. I just wanted to pull my hair out and shout LEAVE TTHE BANANAS ALONE!!

Thats two different supermarkets in two different places. Same tired old banana ritual. And yes, like it or not it really is usually a certain age group who seem to do this more than others. I mean what do they think they are going to look like when they come out of the other end anyway?

Not looking at them you say? He might have poor eyesight. I love bananas when the yellow skin has brown speckles but hate a banana that's over ripe and brown. If he can't use his eyes to see he can only use his hands.

LaMarschallin · 22/11/2025 09:36

TrippingOverMyAssets · 21/11/2025 16:09

I did actually. Perhaps read my posts? 😉

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Well, you mentioned that the man that you (and someone else with time to waste) stood and watched while he was rubbing bananas was "older", but - as I said in one of my posts - older than who/what?
This is part of my post:

LaMarschallin · Yesterday 12:45
Coffeeishot · Yesterday 12:28
Oh I am sure we know what demographic the Op is on about, going by their co op bannana queue story.

Good point.
We know the man was "older", but older than what/who?
The pyramids?
Harry Styles?
His teeth (but just as old as his gums)?

Maybe the 😉 you used indicates you've got something in your eye, so couldn't read it properly...?

And Deliccoffee has called it correctly, imo:
Change of tone after you had your ass handed to you on a plate

Deliccoffee · 22/11/2025 08:52

TrippingOverMyAssets · 21/11/2025 16:17

Right that’s it. Get out of my shop this instant! And don’t come back! 😂

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Change of tone after you had your ass handed to you on a plate @TrippingOverMyAssets

TroysMammy · 22/11/2025 08:45

My ex husband used to enjoy going supermarket shopping to just watch the way people behaved around the bananas 😂.

SooticaTheWitchesCat · 22/11/2025 08:29

I will scan the bananas and then pick up a few to make sure they look good all round. I pick them up by the end bit so I don’t squash them.
I have never in my life seen a banana queue though 😹
I also check avocados.

Actually squeezing fruit is not nice but there is no reason why not to pick up and have a check.

Bluedenimdoglover · 21/11/2025 20:32

TrippingOverMyAssets · 21/11/2025 08:00

So what about the ones you put back? You’re not paying for those or eating them. Other people are, which is the whole point.

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Bananas are peeled, and the bunches are handled by croppers and preparation work. Oranges are peeled. Apples should be washed anyway. Anyone coming behind to chose fruit will probably do the same.

Alliod40 · 21/11/2025 17:26

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 ffs this place gets worse..of course you have to check the fruit before you buy it..I check how green or yellow bananas are..how firm grapes are,check the bottom of cherry toms to make sure they're not mouldy..fruits are very very expensive

Rellzo · 21/11/2025 17:05

I agree this is something that really narks me

Rellzo · 21/11/2025 17:04

Bananas dont bother me being touched because we take the skin off? Also how do you think the handling process is on these before they even make it to shelf?

Namechangedforgoodreasons · 21/11/2025 16:26

TrippingOverMyAssets · 21/11/2025 16:17

Right that’s it. Get out of my shop this instant! And don’t come back! 😂

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Frankly, OP, you just seem to be an indiscriminating shopper and dislike other people, who perhaps have more time and more thrifty value-for-money habits, taking a different view of shopping.

Original poster
TrippingOverMyAssets · 21/11/2025 16:17

floppybit · 21/11/2025 12:08

I have to admit I’m a banana checker….I’m also a tomato sniffer 🫣

Right that’s it. Get out of my shop this instant! And don’t come back! 😂

OP posts:
Northquit · 21/11/2025 16:10

You have to pick them up and look for spiders.

Original poster
TrippingOverMyAssets · 21/11/2025 16:09

LaMarschallin · 21/11/2025 12:26

DramaAlpaca

Maybe that's the age demographic OP's referring to?

Could be.
She doesn’t seem to want to tell us.

I did actually. Perhaps read my posts? 😉

OP posts:
OriginalUsername2 · 21/11/2025 16:03

DramaAlpaca · 21/11/2025 12:16

Not even name changing for this. I'm a broccoli stalk breaker. My DH pretends he's not with me when we are approaching the broccoli.

I'm also a banana checker, lettuce weigher (I like a heavy one, don't ask) cucumber molester, tomato sniffer and melon squeezer.

I'm a Boomer (just). Maybe that's the age demographic OP's referring to?

I used to do that when they sold broccoli by weight. They’re usually in cellophane these days where I shop, probably because of bastards like us.

OP, it is a thing to test fruit by holding it and sniffing it, just like monkeys. But bananas bruise easily and you can just look at the colour, so YANBU about that. I like slightly green ones.

lolly427 · 21/11/2025 15:51

I often have to squeeze pretty much every avocado on the shelf just to try to find one that's not rock hard - and that includes the ones that are supposedly ready to eat.

Easterchicken · 21/11/2025 15:42

Imagine this is your only worry in life.
Such a privilege

AgnesMcDoo · 21/11/2025 15:39

A banana is going to be peeled so what does it matter

BlaBlaWhatever · 21/11/2025 15:34

Mightymooo · 21/11/2025 08:14

Thank you! We have to throw things away when that happens as we have no idea how long it has been sat there for. People don't seem to realise if they don't put it back in a fridge (any fridge will do) we have to throw it out, it's such a waste

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Many years ago, when I was poor, I got something bagged at the delicatessen counter and was too embarrassed to tell the woman that I had mis-read the price and simply didn't have the money to pay for it, so I offloaded it into a fridge around the corner.
I was even more embarrassed that I would have otherwise been when someone found it before I had left the store and the delicatessen woman came running out and found me to give me a right telling off at the checkout (I was wearing a distinctive coat, presumably that's how she identified me....).
I regretted not having hidden it better, rather than leaving it where it would be found and could be returned to the delicatessen.

BlaBlaWhatever · 21/11/2025 15:25

Onefortheroad25 · 21/11/2025 08:03

I won’t eat anything from the bakery section in Lidl after seeing a woman allow her little brats to pick up and put down donuts, cookies, rolls etc. Turns my stomach.

You can't do that in our local Lidl: the bakery products are all in cages behind a transparent screen so you use a kind of long handled spoon to transfer the product you want to buy into a chute and then catch it in a bag without touching it yourself.
https://www.shutterstock.com/fr/image-photo/nrw-october-13-2025-selfservice-bakery-2689670555?trackingId=42ef53e6-4b2c-4a02-a2aa-213861517f93

RawBloomers · 21/11/2025 15:11

booksnbaking · 21/11/2025 10:08

We had one of those old-fashioned greengrocers around 15 years ago. I could have swallowed (arf) the fact that his prices were double the supermarket prices IF his quality had been twice as high, but he was notorious for slipping a couple of dodgy pieces of fruit into the bottom of those nice triangular brown paper bags. He had to be watched like a hawk and given precise instructions about which ones to take. So I was doing the work of choosing, which I would have had in the supermarket, while paying top whack for it. I know NAGALT, but it was galling.

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Shock Yeah, that’s not a green grocer I’d miss!

Theyreeatingthedogs · 21/11/2025 14:38

TW.
I make my own sauerkraut and I'm forever prodding cabbages to find the best one. I'll lift up the top basket to get to the better ones below.

Susanandgoliath · 21/11/2025 14:14

feistyoneyouare · 21/11/2025 12:05

Why does there have to be anything 'really' bothering OP? I'm sure she's aware this isn't a massive issue in the scheme of things, but it's still valid (minus the ageism) to say something is irritating. I have a similar pet peeve about the way that when I get my shopping delivered the bananas often seem to have been jangled around and bruised, but it's not masking any deep existential angst.

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The op says she finds it “triggering” @feistyoneyouare . Would you describe a “pet peeve” as “triggering”?

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