Joey's cucumber trick

When you ask your colleagues to give you supermarket anecdotes and one of them pipes up that his story involves “a large cucumber and some lube” you know you’re probably onto a winner.

I was sat in the office last night with a touch of writer’s block, wondering what the hell I was going to write about on the blog this week, so I decided to ask my workmates if they had any half-interesting shopping stories that they’d like to share with the world.

At which point, trainee reporter Joey decided to reveal a former murky fixation with planting “phallic-looking vegetables and KY Jelly” into the shopping baskets of OAPs.

As a teenager, Joey never really enjoyed traipsing round the supermarket with his dad – so he invented the little “hobby” to pass the time in Morrisons.

He would waiting until he spotted a “suitably respectable” looking elderly couple, then follow them round at a distance until they put their basket down.

As his victims browsed the produce, Joey would sneak up and plant “the biggest cucumber or other phallic-looking vegetable” he could find in their basket, along with a tube of lubricant from the pharmacy aisle.

He would then go and sit by the check-out to watch the inevitable embarrassing domestic scene unfold.

Joey confessed: “I just enjoyed seeing the look of puzzlement on their faces as they lifted the items out of the basket - or as the check-out girl scanned them. I never felt guilty.”

Clearly after Joey’s bombshell, the anecdotes from my other newsroom colleagues kind of paled into insignificance, but bless them - they still had a go.

Caroline and Carl both expressed utter hatred for the self-service check-outs (but admitted still using them).

“You can’t go through without getting something wrong,” said Caroline. “They always tell you something hasn’t been bagged or weight properly, but despite this I always still feel like going to them is just a little bit faster.”

And Rachel got the prize for the dullest story of the evening with her tale of finding rotting oatcakes at one of The Big Four. That was it. The whole story.

Silence. And the Grim Reaper wandered slowly through the newsroom.

Finally, Andy Darlington upped the game by providing me with the below picture.

“I just hate the way supermarkets treat their customers like complete idiots,” he said. “This, in the Co-op, is a prime example, telling people not to eat green bananas. Well doh!”

But despite all this, they all still go to the supermarkets for their weekly shopping. Well doh!

Darlo's bananas