Don’t you just hate it when the supermarket you’ve shopped at for 20 years decides it’s time to shift things?

It’s happened twice this week and the second occurrence may well have spawned a generation of befuddled people.

The first was at the neighbourhood supermarket where we’ve shopped since moving into the area in 2001. It had got to the stage that we could move around the aisles with our eyes shut and be fairly sure we hadn’t missed too much when we unpacked it at home.

But, this week the chicken stuff had gone wandering and ended up where the milk had sat happily and predictably for years. Perhaps in something of a sulk, the milk had fled to a far corner to mutter furtively with the dog food.

Somehow, some of the fish had escaped from the glass case near the deli and had formed a new alliance with the lamb and ham section.

It took ages to track it all down, all the while trying to re-draw the mental mud maps.

Well, that was the first unexpected shift.

The second was more confronting. You’re not going to believe this, but this time it was (pause for ominous music) the hardware shop.

They call it a shop, but it’s the size of two or three aircraft hangars and if you told me there were 120,000 separate items on sale in there, I may well suspect it was a low estimate.

As hardware and gardening junkies, you MUST be familiar with your hardware mega-warehouse or you will lose days and days from your life.

You know how it goes: you get half-way through a project on Saturday, poking about in the petunias or rebuilding the collapsed side of the old chook house and you suddenly realise you need a 3.8 millimetre wigitator to affix the sprong-bracket to Slot B.

“Just be a minute, dear. Ducking down to the hardware shop.”

And maybe only 30 minutes later, you’re back in full Bob The Builder mode.

This week, we decided we needed: a short length of fitted hose, some pool chemicals, a bag of mixed poo (a person can never have too much mixed poo about the house), some tomato plants, assorted green things and sundry other items which would probably be handy – one day.

The hardware place had undergone a Let’s-Shift-Everything phase less than a year ago and the mud map had been re-established, but this was different.

This time it had had a top-to-bottom rearrangement because the place was now under the banner of an entirely different franchise.

(Terrifying thought: perhaps my well-worn and valued loyalty card was useless?)

The pool chemicals had drifted to the front door. The hose area had shrunk. Happily, the bags of poo hadn’t budged.

We got stuck in the outdoor furniture section which had been re-organised into a sort of maze, now full of elderly blokes with eyes like poached eggs, shuffling about and moaning mournfully.

They formed clusters in the corners and were muttering stuff like: “I’ve been here since Tuesday … I only came in for a quick tube of super-glue … poly pipe, poly pipe, my kingdom for some poly pipe ... has anyone seen my trolley?”

Sob.

WAYNE GREGSON