Checkout shame

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

What's your most embarrassing public purchase?

Mine: probably just 2 items; a bottle of vodka and some baby formula. It didn't help that an ex-teacher of mine was in the queue behind me.

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

EDIT: dunno

[Milky]

The cheapest red wine in the shop (£4.49) paid with ten pence pieces only. I'm an alcoholic.

[QDRPHNC]

I had my very own Paul Calf (the Coogan character, not the poster) moment the other week when I decided to replenish my drinks shelf all in one go: 1 bottle of vodka, 1 tequila, 1 gin, 2 whiskey, 1 bourbon, 2 rum.

Get to the checkout.

"Ooh, having a party?"
"No."

[Shit Good Nose]

Unlike a lot of fellas, I've never had a problem buying pant parachutes and bullets for girlfriends and then (and now) Mrs Nose, as long as I was told exactly which ones were required (as the choice is enormous).

However, I've ALWAYS had major embarrassment when buying johnnys.  More than anything else I've ever bought.  Weird.

[QDRPHNC]

Unlike a lot of fellas, I've never had a problem buying pant parachutes and bullets for girlfriends and then (and now) Mrs Nose, as long as I was told exactly which ones were required (as the choice is enormous).

However, I've ALWAYS had major embarrassment when buying johnnys.  More than anything else I've ever bought.  Weird.

I used to have that, don't any more. Now I just stare the checkout person in the eye and nod slowly.

How about buying Plan B though, eh? Nothing says, "I have just made a very stupid and probably avoidable mistake" like that.

[Shit Good Nose]

We've gone for a more extreme solution to the problem - get Mrs Nose on a cocktail of sertraline and opiates for the rest of her life which completely kills off her libido and so we don't have sex and so I don't have to buy johnnys.  Win.


I see Jenny Eclair is advertising Vagimoist, or summat like that, at the moment which got me to thinking I hope I don't have to buy Anusol.  At least before I'm 75.  After then you can probs buy gallons of the stuff without anyone batting an eyelid.

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

We've gone for a more extreme solution to the problem - get Mrs Nose on a cocktail of sertraline and opiates for the rest of her life which completely kills off her libido and so we don't have sex and so I don't have to buy johnnys.  Win.

Plus it makes for some lite-chat fodder at the tills.

[Z]

Went to the checkout with damn near a freezer's worth of reduced stuff, everything one twentieth of its price.

Absolutely none of the barcodes scanned and the girl spent a solid half hour inputting barcodes manually for my 10p Chicken fillets and the like.

[kenneth trousers]

Mine is so embarrassing it makes me feel sick. So, I can't share it with you.
OK, I will...

Back in about 2001 when I was in the RAF I was detached to RAF Cranwell tasked with carrying out complex repairs to aircraft primary structure deemed beyond the capability of station personnel (thanks 2004 CV).
Anyway, I woke up one morning fancying a big old wank so I went to Cranwell village to buy a couple of porn mags. I ended up in a family run mini mart. After selecting 2 mags I went to the counter where a woman was serving. Her son and daughter were in ear shot running around (probably 7 and 9 years old), as I approached the counter the mum had had enough of her kids making a noise and after looking at me with a glance that said, 'tsk, blumming kids eh?' called them to the counter just as I laid down my copies of Escort Readers Wives Special and Fiesta (at a guess). There was silence for a couple of seconds, as the 4 of us stood there. Christ, I'm cringing now.
I paid, left and wanked.
I mean, they shouldn't stock them if they don't want their family stood around as they sell them... I tell myself every single time I relive it over the last 15 years.

[Default to the negative]

My own story is not up to much.

It was the time when I was a teenager, I went to the corner shop and asked for some lighter gas. The woman behind the counter gave me a deeply suspicious look, and hovered around reluctantly for a while. It took me a moment to figure it out. I showed her my fancy lighter and said, 'To refill this.' Which appeased the old busybody, and she served me.

I mean, they shouldn't stock them if they don't want their family stood around as they sell them... I tell myself every single time I relive it over the last 15 years.

The kids must have seen them before, if they were running around the shop all day.

'What are those you're stacking on the shelves, mummy?'

'Books of sin for the bad men, my dears.'

Yes it is hypocritical to peddle filth and then pass judgement on the customers.

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

Might be done with the foreplay and get a barcode tattoo on my winky.

[Avril Lavigne]

The cheapest red wine in the shop (£4.49) paid with ten pence pieces only. I'm an alcoholic.

This but the guy behind the till helped me out as I was 20p short.

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

I once withdrew 6 euro from a bank account. True story. The woman looked at me as if I was some kind of mutant amoeba. I needed it to pay for an unaformentioned VAT bill on a friend's tail-light that I had accidentally broken by reversing into a window sill. Bought from a dealership, cos I couldn't find the part in any scrapyard.

I remember asking her how much was in the account. She discreetly whispered ' it's 6 - 70, sir', as if not to alert the other patrons.

The thing is, I needn't have bothered. Chap didn't even appreciate it.

[Ferris]

One small tin of chicken soup and one 375ml bottle of white wine.

[Dr Trouser]

One small tin of chicken soup and one 375ml bottle of white wine.

Jack Monroe's Coq Au Vin?

[bgmnts]

Condoms really. I am very boring.

[thenoise]

I once withdrew 6 euro from a bank account. True story. The woman looked at me as if I was some kind of mutant amoeba. I needed it to pay for an unaformentioned VAT bill on a friend's tail-light that I had accidentally broken by reversing into a window sill. Bought from a dealership, cos I couldn't find the part in any scrapyard.

I remember asking her how much was in the account. She discreetly whispered ' it's 6 - 70, sir', as if not to alert the other patrons.

The thing is, I needn't have bothered. Chap didn't even appreciate it.

I used to do this practically monthly during the nadir of my poverty days in Bristol, a week or two before payday, when my bank account was less than £10 required to use the lovely anonymous machine. I think the smallest amount was £2 something, which was spent on some Asda smart price pasta and the cheapest sauce. Combined with some lentils I had in the cupboard that just about sustained me for several days.
The person on the fill would frequently try to sell me a loan or a credit card. How the fuck would I pay that back? I was poor as fuck and it wasn't changing any time soon, or I wouldn't be asking you to drain my bank account so I could afford to eat.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Yes, you should. Alan Ladd gives one of his greatest performances as the enigmatic gunslinger.
Or, alternatively:
No, don't. Frank Skinner gives one of his worst performances as the unfunny punslinger.
( This post is based on my misreading of the thread title, and probably ranks amongst my most uninspired and tiresome of the welterweight of shit I send to this hapless forum. As you were. )

[Blue Jam]

I once went to Boots at Edinburgh Airport and bought some lube and nothing else, because that was the only thing I hadn't brought along in a miniature bottle. They only had big bottles too. "Where are you flying to?" "Not Thailand, honest".

Cigs- as Jez once told Mark, refusing to buy lube because you're embarrassed  is weird when you have no problem buying toilet roll.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

That said, something about a 4-pack of bog roll seems normal, but I'd be embarrassed to buy one of those bumper packs as it seems to signal more epic-scale shitting or perhaps a total bowel crisis*.


*Played this game at Withernsea arcades. Insert coin :( I'm trying

[Blue Jam]

I think I've developed a kind of anti-prudishness as a result of my Catholic upbringing. My mother used to get really embarrassed about buying toilet roll and would double-bag it so no-one could see the packaging through the layers of bag, even though the shape of the bag totally gave the game away. Just as you can't deny your bodily functions, you can't disguise bog rolls.

As well as lube I am happy to buy 9-packs of bog roll. Fuck it, they're cheaper.

[pancreas]

Fuck 9 packs. I sling one of these over my shoulder:



Then whenever anyone turns to look, just shrug and tell them: cholera, mate.

[Norton Canes]

Isn't that the same thing they say about shop lifters?

The only thing I ever really buy from Superdrug is Vaseline, or rather their own brand, which is 99p for one of those discreet little pots. So I'm sure by now the staff there identify me as Vaseline Man.

[to infect aside]

While the shame doesn't really happen at the point of purchase, walking home through town with plunger in hand because you forgot to bring a bag isn't great for your sense of dignity.

[Pijlstaart]

Hate buying toilet paper, it gives out too much information. They can do sums, work out the interval between paper purchases, get it down to sheets per day, cross-reference with nutrient breakdown of the other things I buy.  They do this, supermarkets, there's metadata on our habits so they can target products to us, and i don't want that. They'll try to upsell me, or they'll bump up prices just when I'm down to the final roll. Haven't bought a single roll since I moved stateside, purely at-work shitting, supermarkets must think me an enigma, the unshitting man, maybe an immortal, love to highlight the lack of toilet paper to the cashiers, plant a seed in their minds.

[pancreas]

They probably just think you live with your mum mom.

[surreal]

We've gone for a more extreme solution to the problem - get Mrs Nose on a cocktail of sertraline and opiates for the rest of her life which completely kills off her libido and so we don't have sex and so I don't have to buy johnnys.  Win.

I see Jenny Eclair is advertising Vagimoist, or summat like that, at the moment which got me to thinking I hope I don't have to buy Anusol.  At least before I'm 75.  After then you can probs buy gallons of the stuff without anyone batting an eyelid.

This is the one benefit of self-service, just put them through and straight in the bag.

[mothman]

Got caught trying to buy a porn mag in 1984. By the headmaster's wife. I was 13. Got out of trouble by blaming it on peer pressure, that I'd been put up to it by other boys. The two friends I dobbed in, well, one became a police officer but was thrown off the force for possession of child porn; the other was expelled for throwing a knife around. And by "around" I mean "into another boy's head." So my conscience is clear.

[græskar]

The cheapest red wine in the shop (£4.49) paid with ten pence pieces only. I'm an alcoholic.

Yeah, this one for me as well. More than once, come to think of it. Very pathetic