Supermarket Installs Ministry Of Aisle Reconsideration After Shoppers Choose Wrong Cereal
The Lower Wombley Grocer has begun sending every purchase to a tiny cabinet for approval, delaying lunch by several ceremonial hours.
LOWER WOMBLEY, A supermarket has created a Ministry of Aisle Reconsideration after noticing that customers had been selecting cereal without first consulting miniature clerks, three ceremonial pigeons or a jar marked “Probably.”
Linda Sources reports that Lower Wombley Grocer brought in the ministry on Tuesday after what management called “a troubling period of unsupervised choosing.” At the entrance, shoppers now receive a paper crown and must explain their interest in milk before they are allowed near the dairy section.
The paperwork has spread. Tansy Quibble, Senior Undersecretary for Crisps, runs the ministry from a folding table between the frozen peas and a display of turnips that appears unusually confident. “We are not stopping anyone from buying anything,” Quibble said. “We are simply asking whether they have considered buying something else, possibly a canoe.”
“Buy the biscuits and accept that you are now part of the biscuit story.”
Each basket now goes before the Department of Minor Consequences, an invented office staffed by people in blue aprons with stamp pads shaped like small biscuits. Yoghurt can pass straight through. Six identical puddings go upstairs to the Committee for Repeated Intentions, where the matter is expected to remain for some time.
The committee is not the only new authority. The automatic doors have been given voting rights, though neither has used them yet. A man standing nearby said the doors opened and closed in a pattern that looked like a coalition agreement, then admitted a family of shopping trolleys without comment.
Once shoppers have paid, they receive a receipt on a narrow scroll. Alongside the prices, it records the emotional weather inside the basket and includes advice from the store’s resident oracle, a retired avocado called Mervin. His first ruling, “Buy the biscuits and accept that you are now part of the biscuit story,” now hangs above customer services.
By Thursday, the ministry had moved on to checkout queues. The review is expected to form a queue around the building. Quibble said the store remained committed to efficiency, provided nobody took efficiency to mean leaving with groceries before the official trumpet sounded.
Lower Wombley Grocer denied rumours that it planned to appoint a cucumber mayor of the car park. A cucumber was nevertheless seen wearing a sash and declining to answer questions. The final notice asks shoppers to bring patience, identification and one small object they would be prepared to defend before a committee.