I’ve sat exams. I’ve had job interviews. I’ve performed on stage in front of hundreds of people.

All have an element of pressure; but nothing compares to the sheer unbridled terror of having to pack your bags at a supermarket checkout.

What is it about this monotonous of all tasks that causes people to flap about like they’re running from some sort of natural disaster? It must be the judgmental gaze of the queue that you are inevitably holding up. The fact that they will likely only have to wait an extra 30 seconds or so doesn’t seem to cross their minds while they pile on the pressure, and is a phenomenon paralleled only in a fast food drive through when being told “park in bay one”. That wait is very minimal but the rage is very real – but that particular irk is for another day.

The 20-or-so eyes scaring your general motor skills away is compounded when you consider the Major League Baseball pitcher that has decided to pursue a career in Tesco. Why they fire your shopping at you at several thousand miles-per-hour, I will never understand. Maybe they’re attempting some kind of land-speed record. One particular Aldi cashier could give the Thrust SSC a run for its money.

And just when it couldn’t get any harder, the 5p bag charge has really thrown a spanner in the works. Now not only do I have to pack fast enough for the circling vultures of the waiting queue, and catch a tin of beans thrown at me in a way that I can only assume was meant to cause harm, now I have to guess how many bags I’m going to need, because heaven forbid they be kept somewhere easily accessible; someone might make away with 5p! So now the act of bag packing is a mental workout as well as a physical one and, frankly, I’m finding it all a bit too much.

Thankfully, however, for every novice like myself that cracks under the pressure, there is one that does not falter so easily. Perhaps a quick-fingered friend or a level-headed parent. In future, they can go and do the shopping and I’ll go and re-sit A-Level Physics – it’s far less stressful.