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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To expect retired people not to clog up the supermarkets at lunchtime?

115 replies

Chil1234 · 02/02/2010 13:20

Really? I mean, come on oldsters, you've got all day to sashay round the shops at a snail's pace, stopping to chat to the assistants, lovingly examining every item on the shelf and trying to work out if the 3 for £2 offer is better than the BOGOF. Why do you want to rock up by the coachload at 12:00 when the place is full of stressed-out people (like me) trying to charge round with a trolley in the alloted 20 minutes left of their lunch-break - list in one hand and mobile phone (yes, I'll be back in a minute!!!!) in the other? What's so appealing about standing in queues five deep when, if you'd arrived an hour or two earlier or later, you could have the place more or less to yourself?

Thank you.. I feel better for that.

OP posts:
kinnies · 02/02/2010 13:22

Shop online?
YABU. You cant teel old folk what to do.

GothDetective · 02/02/2010 13:22

YANBU.

What's just as bad is all the oldies in my local shop at 8:00am as I dive in to get milk/paper/whatever. There's often some OAP who's come in to buy a load of scratchcards/pay their paper bill, and I'm silently seething behind them thinking we'll be late for school, DD will have burnt the house down by the time I get back, etc.

belgo · 02/02/2010 13:23

YANBU.That would annoy me too. As a SAHM I always try and go shopping at the quietest times.

Aussieng · 02/02/2010 13:24

And the mums with the bloody great pushchairs getting in the way too

EleanoraBuntingCupcake · 02/02/2010 13:24

it is deliberate, they are organised and filled with hatred for the young

DaisymooSteiner · 02/02/2010 13:26

Honestly. Why can't they just all stay in old people's homes and just come out at pre-arranged times when no-one else is around and they won't get in the way.

KarmaNoMore · 02/02/2010 13:26

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Fibilou · 02/02/2010 13:26

This really annoys me too. The Sainsbury's in our town cente is always full of 80 year olds at lunchtime who dither around and try to engage the cashier in a long chat. They all seem to get up about 5am so why not go in the morning when the shop is empty ?
Now I am on maternity leave I wouldn't dream of going in at lunchtime when I have all day to shop

kinnies · 02/02/2010 13:26

I think you should tell them your thoughts on the matter.

Let us know how it goes.

waitingforglasto · 02/02/2010 13:27

Dont get me started on why they feel the need to get the schooltime bus into town either - I mean I know they've been up for hours by 8am but even so its a pita.

And the huffiness when they have to move out of the pushchair bay with their trollies - go an hour later then...arrgh and then the added tutting about the children/teenagers - yes the bus is full of them - they're going to school - easily avoided if you travel even half an hour later - the post office isnt bloody well going anywhere.

AmazingBouncingFerret · 02/02/2010 13:28

Oh its not just old people, they should ban people from doing big full shops in M&S between the hours of 12 and 3. Its not fun being stuck behind several people with huge trolley loads when all I bloody want is a sandwich, a chocolate sundae and a bottle of juice!

KarmaNoMore · 02/02/2010 13:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

onlyjoinedforoffers · 02/02/2010 13:29

YABU they can shop when they want greeting whinging weans are not much fun to listen to either you know

Bucharest · 02/02/2010 13:29

The last time this was mentioned, the point was made that just perhaps they are lonely, and like going out when the shops are a bit busier.

Perhaps we should impose a curfew?

GibbonInARibbon · 02/02/2010 13:31

Let's hope the next generation is a tad more compassionate when you are older.

GibbonInARibbon · 02/02/2010 13:32

Hope you never feel old and alone.

ASecretLemonadeDrinker · 02/02/2010 13:32

No no, it's the lunch breakers that get my goat. All pile in in BMWs and Audis ('cos they have Made It, y'know?), take the parent and child spaces thinking 1) parents have all day to shop and 2) not wanting their on HP BMW, which they cannot afford as they are an office junior but they have an image to create, to be scratched is a good enough reason, then swarm around the sandwiches - the "New Years resoloution" sorts heading for the salad bar, grab their yuppy dinners and bottle of on offer plonk and rush back to the office. SO, when I pop in at 12.15 , having just dropped DS1 at nursery, there they are like flies on shit. THe biddie brigade are reserved for Fridays, where they come by the coachload.

MrsMorgan · 02/02/2010 13:34

Ha you remind me of my 'friend' who reckons that people on benefits shouldn't be clogging up the shops when she is on her lunchbreak, as 'they have all day to do what they like'.

kinnies · 02/02/2010 13:34

I'm home all day and will shop when I feel like it.
If anyone has a prob with it then do feel free to write it down and shove it up yer arse.

TheArmadillo · 02/02/2010 13:35

YABU - they can shop whenever the fuck they want tbh.

Just cos they are retired doesn't mean they aren't busy, or maybe they rely on others who can only take them at a certain time. Or maybe they just like pissing about all morning and strolling down when they are ready which coincidentally is lunchtime. Or maybe it takes them that long to get ready in the morning.

Or maybe they just do it to piss off arrogant sods. Or maybe for a hundred other reasons.

I could suggest that maybe you get more organised so you don't have to go to the shops on your lunchbreak

JemL · 02/02/2010 13:35

YABVVVVU.

It isn't the end of the world if you have to wait 5 minutes. Even if you are the most important person in the world, and people are crying down the phone, pleading for you to come back to work before everything collapses without you...

TheArmadillo · 02/02/2010 13:35

YABU - they can shop whenever the fuck they want tbh.

Just cos they are retired doesn't mean they aren't busy, or maybe they rely on others who can only take them at a certain time. Or maybe they just like pissing about all morning and strolling down when they are ready which coincidentally is lunchtime. Or maybe it takes them that long to get ready in the morning.

Or maybe they just do it to piss off arrogant sods. Or maybe for a hundred other reasons.

I could suggest that maybe you get more organised so you don't have to go to the shops on your lunchbreak

waitingforglasto · 02/02/2010 13:36

Oh fgs - noone really means it- its just the irrational things that wind you up.

Give over with the we must only say the right things all the time type post.

Guess what? old people can be annoying, children can be annoying, we can be annoying.

And fwiw retired people don't need compassion per se - they are just old not ill or totally incapacitated - to think anything else is to see them as somehow lesser than us - so we dont have to expect the same civilities because they're old? Of course we can.

TheDevilWearsPrimark · 02/02/2010 13:36

Why would you do a big supermarket shop in your lunch break you loon?

Bucharest · 02/02/2010 13:37

This kind of OP makes me feel physically sick, and wish I were closer to my Mum so I could protect her from this kind of attitude.

Hope the thread is going the way you envisaged OP.