Right now, I'm embarrassing myself. Although nobody else in the world knows it apart from me and her, I am torturing the woman who is standing behind me in the queue at the checkout counter of Westside Dunnes.
There's nothing physical about my act of evil. I'm neither secretly pulling her hair, nor standing furtively with all my weight on her toes.
My attack is purely psychological, and I'm embarrassed purely because I cannot believe that I am behaving in such a childish way.
Finally, I relent, reach for little placcy divider, and move it from in front of my shopping to the back.
She breathes a massive sigh of relief as she whispers "Thank you!" and starts to offload her groceries onto the conveyor belt.
Even though I know my behaviour was infantile, my motives were pretty grown up. I was experimenting on my fellow human.
How long would she last with clear black conveyor belt before her eyes, but no placcy divider?
What is it about the absence of that placcy divider that scares people so?
Solid mothers of five who drive small tanks and run successful businesses from their home offices shrink with fear when presented with the edge of somebody else's shopping.
I mean, really, I know we all need our personal space to survive life in the city, but once there's a couple of clear inches between my stuff and your stuff, it's pretty unlikely that the cashiers are going to suddenly reach out and charge your shopping to my bill. But even, god forbid, even if they did, what's the worst that can happen?
We might be forced to look each other in the eye, act like social animals, and explain that a mistake had been made.
As I say, it's pretty unlikely that such an error would occur anyway, but still the most hurried, stressed, impatient people wait as calmly as their raging blood pressures allow for the placcy divider, holding their breath, arms folded at the chest, as if their very lives were under threat.
I've even seen some people piling their shopping into a tower on the metal end of the counter, waiting waiting for the moment, of ...oooh ... oooohhhhh ... ahhhhhhh.... release as they see the placcy hit the conveyor belt.
Are we talking some kind of obscure anal retention? Is all this holding back really about the postponed release, the self-imposed delaying of the moment of pleasure?
No, I doubt it. As far as the world of erotic environments go, the checkout queue of Westside Dunnes has to rank alongside the sexual allure of dung beetles and the sensuality of soggy white bread in the sink.
Maybe it's more about a misplaced politeness. Have we developed a tacit set of rules? Is there an unwritten book of supermarket etiquette? Are people being respectful, and if so, why are they being so ridiculously considerate about such a minor issue, when away from this obscure shopping behavioural phenomenon, they quite happily park so close to your gate that you can't get your car in the drive?
They won't put their fish fingers within a placcy divider-less foot of your organic Bio Pot, but they wouldn't think twice about sitting down next to you and talking to their friend all the way through the film in the cinema.
So no, l don't really buy the idea that it's down to manners and respect, so we have to look elsewhere.
Perchance it's pure snobbery. Maybe posh Moddim in the Moon's overcoat doesn't want her superior brands to become mixed up, entangled, or (shudder at the mere thought of it) soiled by sitting too close to my Goodfellas frozen pizza on the moving black plastic. Maybe Moddim Maniacal is so proud of the fact that her groceries organiacal are all so fresh and top-of-the-range that she fears her character might be maligned if her victuals drift towards my food-of-the-masses Denny's Gold Medal sausages.
Sadly, this theory falls at the first, as this fear of moving black belt crosses all economic thresholds. it doesn't matter if the bloke behind me is laden with family packs of generic own-brand value items, or carrying only a little prosciutto and confit de canard.
Rich or poor, male or female, you're all scared to the point of pooping by the thought of sharing your shopping.
The only explanations left form a simple choice:
Perhaps I am ignorant of a terrible dark day in Irish history when a riot started in a supermarket. Not so much the 'Massacre of Vinegar Hill' as the 'Slaughter of the Celeriacs' or the 'Great Corn Flake Carnage of '77'.
If something like that happened, I need to know about it, so please advise.
Otherwise, I will settle for the bad and sad truth that we define ourselves - our character, our social standing, our self respect - by what is in our supermarket trolleys.
Tell me that you have never cast a critical eye over what your fellow humans are buying in their weekly shop. Tell me you have not felt smug that your choices are so much better than theirs!
'... What are they going to do with that muck? Yucketty yuk yuk! Glad I don't live in their home! That toilet paper tears badly, and that cleaner is bad for the environment, and I don't like those crackers, way too salty, and look look look at all the meat you've bought! What a piglet! Heart attack coming up for you, no doubt mate. Didn't you ever hear of fruit and veg, pal?'
Ahem, cof cof. Yeh, well, I'll always be the first to admit how very human I am.
Seems to me we bear a deep-seated fear that if the products that make up our household's intake become mixed up with yours, our loss of purity and identity would be tantamount to losing our own DNA. If your Shredded Wheat touches my Pantene Pro V, my fingerprints might well change forever.
Each and every item represents a want or need that we hold close, and as with our music, we are convinced that nobody else in the whole pooliverse has such an interesting and unique collection of preferences.
As Miss Bennet amply explains, in Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice':
"There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste."
Double Vision
Caricatures Ireland
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