When I unfold the little child’s seat at the front of the trolley, there it is lying innocuously on the square of blue plastic: a folded piece of paper.  Just as I can’t pass a ringing phone, so I can’t see a piece of folded paper that has a flash of handwriting on it and not turn it over.

But I’m a bit pushed for time so I lean on the trolley handle with my wrists and cruise off, unfolding the paper as I move past the crates of strawberries. I love looking at other people’s shopping lists, don’t you? Always fascinating. You think we all buy the same staples – flour, chicken, ketchup, storecupboard bits, onions, bread, milk, tea, coffee, some fresh fruit and veg, washing powder…

But no, if you’re not already a shopping list snooper, you won’t know. You get all sorts, some very random combinations. Take this one I found last week:

Scallops

Organic Butter

Samphire

Organic ribeye x 2

Fresh hollandaise sauce

Tenderstem broccoli

Smoked garlic

Organic Maris Pipers

Sparkling water

Sancerre

Olive Oil

Tiramisu

Duck eggs

Sourdough

Pot Noodle

Frozen Peas

Coke

McCain’s burgers

Here is someone desperate to impress with an amazing meal, confident there’ll be a need to serve an equally posh breakfast the next morning. Then when their paramour is finally booted out, a swift – and cheap? – reversal to the bachelor lifestyle.

What about this?

Cider

Chicken nuggets

Frozen pizza

Sprite

Student, definitely.

Or this?

Chicken

Frozen cauliflower & peas

Potatoes

Milk chocolate

Self-raising flour

Butter

Carrots

24 pack toilet

Kitchen roll

Gin

A busy mother, for sure.

The list I find today though is totally different and I find myself drifting along the aisles without so much as a glance at the shelves, my own shopping list lying forgotten at the bottom of my coolbag. It says:

Ruthless

Ordinary-looking

Quick-witted

Aura

Not too tall

Strong

Nocturnal

Sense of humour

Articulate

Bold

Brave

So, this is someone shopping for…a person? How peculiar. It can’t be a lonely hearts, surely – who would be looking for a ruthless, ordinary-looking, nocturnal partner? I decide I don’t want to think about that. In fact, the bubbly rush I get nosing around in other people’s lists has evaporated very suddenly. It feels colder and darker in here and I find I can’t remember what I came in for. In a bit of a daze, I abandon the trolley in the aisle and leave by the nearest exit.

I feel like I’m coming down with a fever, everything around me seems faded away somehow and my senses are heightened so that I can almost feel them buzzing around between my ears.

I’m in such a hurry to leave that I almost bump into her. A lady of late middle age, quite portly, dressed rather eccentrically even though everything she is wearing is black. I mumble an apology and she smiles and says, “Ah, the apprentice at last.”

Mad as a brush, clearly, so I lower my head and start to scurry away, but she nudges my arm and nods her head to the list which I didn’t realise I was still clutching. “So, how many items? Most people are definitely five or less,” and she gives a great big belly laugh at her own supermarket-related joke. I look again at the list. I’m not sure about being ruthless, brave or bold but I suppose the others do ring a bit of a bell. Apart from aura, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.

As I hesitate, the old lady looks at me shrewdly as though she can hear my inner monologue and says, “Don’t worry about the aura – I could see yours coming a mile off, that’s why I stuck around. Oh dear, you do look bamboozled. It’s not all eye of frog, toe of newt anymore these days, if that’s what you’re worried about – a lot of the stuff we use now is synthetic. Same with the broomsticks, they’re a much easier ride, more comfortable, go-faster stripes, the lot.” She gives me a sympathetic smile. “It’s a lot to take in, I know, and a big decision. I think we should go back to mine and talk it all through properly, you must have questions.” And she smiles again, reaches for my hand, gives it a tough squeeze and the world just seems to crumble away.

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Alex Jury

Alex Jury is a retired cowgirl, now working as a copywriter in London. She loves working with words but misses all the lassoing.

Latest posts by Alex Jury (see all)

• A Cry in the Wilderness - 29/07/16
• Cold Comfort - 27/06/16
• Big Game - 18/06/16
• Accidentally Famous - 28/05/16
• Shopping List - 20/04/16