To have told a woman she couldn't go ahead of me in a queue in Lidl?!

[NoNoNooooo]

Today I was lining up to pay for my things with my son, who'd just woken up 5 mins earlier. He normally has a melt down when waking up outside the house so I wanted to get out of there quickly before he started.

As I was standing waiting, a woman came and stood next to me and started lingering towards the till, attempting to cut infront. I'd been standing there about 5 mins or more and there were only two tills open today which were both busy.

I pushed my pushchair ahead and began putting my things on the belt when she tapped me on the shoulder and said "do you mind if I go ahead of you?"
I replied (thanks to MN) "No". I don't know how she misunderstood but she replied "thank you" and was about to put her things down when I said "No, I have a baby and he will start crying any minute now".

She looked at me shocked like no one has ever said "no" to her before, and my face went red and I just turned my face the other way in embarrassment. My baby didnt end up crying, but was I wrong to not let her go ahead? She had two big packets of popcorn and something else in her hand I think. I had a basketful of fruit and milk, that's all.

Thanks for all the nice replies. I feel so embarrassed now! Lets hope I never bump into her again, she must have thought I was a right weird, grumpy cow!

You weird grumpy cow NoNoNoooooo

Too funny. Are you Miranda?

I do the same sort of thing regularly. PLEASE though, if you bump into her again, say something - she'll think you're just plain weird then rather than grumpy!

I am surprised that people would actually ask to go in front of someone at the check out. If you haven't got time to do your shopping go later!

The misunderstanding is quite funny - she may have just been confused rather than annoyed though.

I may offer for someone to go in front if I had loads and they didn't but often if you have had to do a big family shop and sometimes with DCs in tow you want to get through that check as quickly as possible so I would definitely say no if anyone asked!

aldiwhore, unfortunately I'm not Miranda. I wish I was though, it would be "such fun!"

"Yes" is a complete sentence too, OP

I think the relevance of the popcorn is just the OP listing the woman's items vs her own - i.e. there wasn't a major discrepancy between her amount of shopping and the OP's.

Don't worry OP, the etiquette of supermarket queues is not written down anywhere. I'd never ask someone if I could go in front of them.

When I'm in Lidl I often have a full trolley so will let someone behind me with only a few items go ahead.

However, what are you supposed to do when there are three or four (or more) people behind with a few items each? Recently I was in this situation and thought if I let them all through I'd be there for ages and I was in a hurry so I just carried on putting things on the belt.

A few of the people looked very put out and I think they thought I should let them go ahead of me. Was I wrong? In a way they could have been standing behind a lot of people with a few items each so they would be waiting just as long as waiting behind me then wouldn't they?

I'm impressed that Lidl had two tills open. There are about four or five tills in my local Lidl but I've only ever seen them open one of them. I think the others are dummy tills...

:o your OP really made me giggle with your mixup. Even if you did get it right and tell her first that you did mind then you still wouldn't have been unreasonable. Taking a child with autism shopping can be a nightmare, I'd do anything to avoid a meltdown too!

No Blizzard, I don't think you were wrong. it could be a bit like driving when you let one person out and then some others behind think you will let them out too.

queuing is what this nation is good at. Patience isn't such a bad quality.