We've all been there. The supermarket. You've got your cart filled, you're nearing the end of your list. Just a few more items. You turn into the isle to get one of those final items and.... *screech!* You have to come to a grinding halt because the stock person (very PC of me, I know) is restocking a shelf. Apparently a critically important shelf, because not only is he restocking it, but he must keep all shoppers from coming anywhere near the general vicinity of the fresh stock by parking his big ass stocking cart smack dab in the middle of the isle.

So, you pause there a moment, thinking, as most rational people would, that the clueless clerk will realize you're there and he has thoughtlessly blocked the way and will move the cart, apologizing politely as he does so. Wrong! If you think that's going to happen, you underestimate the training these clerks have had. You see, they have been trained to be so single minded in their tasks that not only are they completely unaware that you need to get by them, they don't even realize there is anyone else in the isle! It's sort of like reverting to selective hearing as a child, except they have been trained by experts.

And why would supermarket management train them to do this you ask? Simple! In fact, it's rather obvious. If we can't get by them, it means we must go around them. So, we go down another isle. An isle we may have already been down, or had no intention of going down. Our flow has been interrupted. We've been annoyed, frustrated and are now even more prone to impulse buying. Don't laugh. You can't tell me that if you get pissed off in the supermarket that the box of Double Stuff Oreos you showed amazing willpower over five minutes ago won't find it's way into your cart if you are forced to travel by them again in an agitated state. After all, now you deserve them!

Paranoid? Perhaps. But when the world is out there plotting against you, paranoid is just good thinking.