In the introductory post at the top of the blog, I mentioned having nifty workarounds for my many awkwardnesses. I know I am not alone in not liking to be hurried while not wanting to hold people up. These days I find myself going to great lengths to be organised. It has taken me decades to refine.

I can’t remember when I first started using organiser handbags. There’s a place for everything, and I can find what I want in seconds. Nowadays I use as small a bag as possible to avoid back and neck strain, so I have a tiny, four-pocket, cross-body design in several different colours. The design makes it easy for me to get to things quickly. My most-used travel card is in its own space. My card wallet is easily to hand, and I don’t keep anyone waiting while I pay.

Social media is a great place for virtue signalling, and for highlighting causes that users want to show support for. There has been much publicity about self-service tills in shops, with exhortations to “use the cashier-operated tills to save jobs”. I hate self-service tills anyway, with one exception. Our local supermarket has the option to shop with a scanner, pack as you go, and pay at a self-service till. It may not be popular with the keyboard warrior class, but while the option exists, I’ll use it with gratitude. It means that by the time I reach the till, my shopping is packed and ready to go, and all I have to do is scan myself out, have my age checked for some goods, and pay. The occasional random rescan is handled without fuss and without a queue.

I resist self-checkout when I haven’t pre-scanned. Each system seems to be subtly different from all the others, and I always seem to end up going too slow. This results in the scanner shouting at me, and me shouting back, which is both unedifying and stress-inducing, and gets me some nervous looks from other customers. Last week I found myself trying to manage three recalcitrant shopping bags on the bagging section and fumbling to pack them as the machine got increasingly impatient. The assistant who came to my rescue confessed to hating them as much as I do, “and I work here”.

All that said, cashier-operated tills can be stressful for people like me. However much I try to organise my shopping on the conveyor, once the scanning starts, I find it hard to keep up with the rush of goods. If there’s a queue behind me, I expect people to get impatient and start huffing, which heightens the pressure. Becoming flustered slows me down even more. Click and collect and home delivery were a boon in the pandemic and I still use them.

When I was young, energetic and always in a hurry, I tended to be more impatient than I am now. Age and understanding have brought a bit more forbearance with them. If you see someone fumbling to keep up, it could be their brain wiring slowing them down. Please give them a break.