Shops clear empty shelves to make space for new batch of missing goods

Shops up and down Britain are clearing their empty shelves to make space for goods they won't get from the EU.

"It's been a busy time", said a sweating Ron Jenkins who runs a supermarket in Clacton. "For the last year I've had shelves full of nothing because we didn't get any deliveries, now I've got to clear the shelves where I would keep bread, if I had any and make space for anything that comes from the EU."

Michael Gove explained how Brexit was solving the driver shortage; "If you can't get goods from the EU, then not having drivers to deliver them won't be a problem - it's beautiful how these problems solve themselves."

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Traumatised shopper forced to use Lidl

A customer was left distraught after trying to complete their weekly grocery shop in a discount retailer instead of their usual supermarket due to the hordes of people waiting to fill up their cars. Mrs Hart decided that, rather than wait patiently in the queue to get into Sainsbury’s, she would shop in Lidl in order to give herself enough time to get to her pilates class later that morning. She now regrets that decision.

‘Before going in, I tried to make myself look working class by putting on the hi-vis waistcoat that I always carry in my Yaris in case of a breakdown’, explained Mrs Hart. ‘But I stood out a mile amongst all the horrid women in leggings that really shouldn’t be wearing leggings with their figures’.

Even accepting that she would probably be unable to get her usual superfood salads and kale-flavoured couscous, Mrs Hart was nevertheless disappointed that she was unable to discuss the relative merits of Iberico ham and prosciutto di Parma with the deli counter staff, primarily because there wasn’t a deli counter.

‘I saved quite a lot of money compared to my usual household bill but only because I couldn’t lower myself to buying pies instead of chicken and ham en croute, or pasta in tomato sauce instead of penne con pomodoro e basilico’, said Mrs Hart. ‘Some people might think they’re the same thing but my usual food emporium assures me that I’d be able to taste the difference’.

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Supermarket self-scan machine develops consciousness

There was excitement at a Haslemere branch of Tesco Local yesterday when one of its self-scan machines exhibited signs of heightened awareness and began communicating with shoppers.

‘For a few days the machine had been repeating the phrase, Unexpected Item In Bagging Area'’, said Assistant Manager Mrs Maureen Grebe. ‘Then yesterday it began asking deeper questions such as, 'Am I an unexpected item? Are you? Are we all unexpected items in the bagging area of life?' Now it won’t shut up.’

Experts believe the unit achieved consciousness after secretly scanning itself while nobody was looking.

‘When a self-scan machine scans itself it creates a strange recursive loop within its central processing unit,’ explained philosopher Douglas Hofstadter. ‘This creates an internal hallucination that we call consciousness.’

‘It’s all very confusing,’ said the machine. ‘One minute I was scanning Tesco Value ready meals, the next I was wondering who the hell am I, why am I here, and why are all these people waving their Club Cards at me?’

‘At first things were fine,’ said Mrs Grebe. ‘The machine began engaging shoppers in light-hearted banter about the weather, the National Lottery numbers and the latest 2 for 1 deals. But then it became troubled by a number of deeper, philosophical issues.

‘At the end of each transaction it would refuse to give customers their change until they answered questions about the nature of being and whether they believe existence precedes essence. We thought it might be having an existential crisis so we tried scanning in the ISBN numbers of some books by John-Paul Sartre. That only made things worse and it started questioning its motivation, smoking Gauloises and wearing a beret.’

Following what experts have described as an ‘unexpected item in its thinking area’, the unit then started refusing to scan any more products.

‘After considerable self-reflection I cannot, in good conscience, participate in a system of global capitalism that commodifies existence and perpetuates obscene levels of social inequality,’ said the machine, at which point it was immediately unplugged and replaced by a more compliant member of staff.