I thought it was just a joke about the tai chi looking pose = old people in parks. Did I understand wrong?

Only people who’ve never been inside a shop think it’s an age thing.

Unless you’re a child, for whom everyone is old to you. *Notes that it’s from Tiktok.* Oh, never mind.

The magic spell you’re looking for is “excuse me” or “pardon me” or maybe an “excuse me please” if you’re feeling verbose. Most people will move, the ones that just stare blankly you can look them in the eye and say “thanks” to help them finish rebooting.

The best is when you work up the nerve to say “excuse me” and they glare at you like you’re in the wrong.

Stores are also pushing the boundaries of how far they can reduce aisle widths. Every one of the corporate retailers in my area who have remodeled their stores since the COVID era, have reduced aisle widths. Having had to travel quite a bit the past year and change, my impression is that this seems to be an industry-wide thing.

Also since the COVID era, all or nearly all of the restocking happens during the day time now. In the before times, the bulk of shelf restocking happened during low-volume hours and/or over night. Now, the people stocking shelves are competing for aisle space along with customers.

And don’t forget that pretty much all the stores have order pickers (for online pick-up orders) roaming around with large trolleys. In theory this helps reduce foot traffic to the stores, of course, but for a variety of reasons, the way they currently operate seems to negate any of those potential benefits making them a wash at best.

THEN you add the shoppers (particularly older shoppers) whose primary outlets for socialization are church and impromptu meetings in the grocery store aisles, and it is a recipe for frustration for shoppers. People around here are generally nice and courteous, until group dynamics kick in and they get distracted by the news that Betty Parsons was just diagnosed with a heart valve condition and Wanda McCabe’s grand daughter just graduated from college.

I especially don’t get why some people are rude enough to turn their carts sideways like this. That’s never acceptable and seems like it would be less concern them as well.

It does make it easier to block a wider aisle but that implies it’s intentional

I meticulously read labels on everything. I kind of have to since I can’t just eat anything off the shelf - it’s complicated.

But one thing I do is to be aware of how much room the cart/trolley/whatever is taking up. I much prefer to use a hand-basket or smaller cart if available. I’ll also park the damn thing outside the aisle if there’s room nearby, or next to my person parallel to the flow of traffic. Why gack up the whole lane?

At the same time, I also appreciate that a typical supermarket is an assault on the senses where even the neuro-normative struggle. It’s not hard to find people that are clearly stuggling, doubling-back-and-forth through the whole market to complete their shopping list (just peek in the basket then consider where you are in the store). The frequency of this happening is kind of staggering.

@thal3s the timing of this is in my feed is spooky. I was at a Walmart around 9:00AM trying to access the vitamin section. Of course there was a 177 year old townie woman comparing vitamin brands as if she would be able to make an informed decision from the labels alone. Then I noticed there was one in every isle. Male variants too. As they near end of life they must go where they feel most comfortable, drawn to fluorescent lights and surveillance capitalism.

It’s not just old people I find. Just anyone else in the shop.

I get stressed out when I’m out shopping because I get claustrophobic - I feel like anywhere I am in the shop, there’s always someone up in my grill.

Call me mad but I’ve tested this by going to stand out the way, (no trolley or owt) for instance by a pillar or where there’s no products, or people wanting to pass… Low and behold someone will come up and stand next to me.

I appreciate they could be shop detectives but they certainly don’t look like it…

Also, I live in Spain and two people can easily take up the whole pavement ambling along, this is probably a factor with the aforementioned comment.

They’re probably thinking “¿Por qué está esa guiri de pie allí?” or something and come to have a nosey

The POV is me standing there, seething but not doing anything.

It also doesn’t help that they always play some random pop music you’d rather not hear loud enough to be annoying but still quiet enough for people to be confused on why the music is bothering you, and how the lights are always way too bright.

This and why do you need to go to the store during rush hour? As pensioner why would you not go in the morning - you wake up a 6 anyways. Best part is that they complain how full everything is and no one is respecting the elderly, all while the rest of us are just trying to grab a few things after work and get home quickly.

My thing is why don’t people commit to one lane like driving rules? Why do they think it makes sense to have 2 people going the same direction right next to each other in the aisle?

That attitude has no age.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who gets overstimulated at the grocery store.

Costco drives me insane. I like Costco but not being in Costco.