As many of you on here know, I'm not all that clever on my feet and my back really hurts when I walk or stand for long, so I shop on-line for my groceries with Asda. This is a brilliant way for me to do the shopping without it hurting my back or for me to get side-tracked by goodies on offer................

Well this week's shopping came this morning by the lovely Carl, who repairs or makes computers. He's a lovely lad and we chat when he comes. He's so kind - he puts everything on the kitchen table for me, puts the cat food boxes away on the shelf and will carry anything heavy for me and put it where it belongs.

Well sometimes when I've ordered an item and it wasn't available when my 'shopper' went to get it, they send an alternative. Now sometimes they aren't what I really want, and that's okay - cos I can send it back, but I must admit I'm very lucky to not have the 'alternatives' that some people have had.

Now I gather that some supermarkets employ school-leavers etc to be the virtual shopper, but it is worrying when they put an alternative in the shop and it's nothing like the original....

For example - someone ordered brocolli and they received ginger as an alternative!!! now can you imagine expecting to do a brocolli and cheese dish, but only have ginger? Somehow it just isn't going to taste the same..........

Today Carl told me of some other 'bloopers' he delivered today...

Someone was giving a birthday party and he said you could tell by the fact there was a lovely big birthday cake, banners, balloons, streamers etc delivered, but they also asked for paper plates - obviously there weren't any at the time of picking, so whoever it was, thought that computer printing paper would do instead?????? Can you imagine the look on the customer's face when she realised that she didn't have any plates for the party? More worrying - what WAS going on in the head of the picker when they thought that printing paper was a good alternative????

Another 'howler' was someone had ordered a toaster. What did they get as an alternative.....? A plastic plate draining rack!!!! Okay you can put the bread in the slots put there for the bread and probably have to hold a match up to the bread to toast it [doh] - but what was going through their head when they were faced with no toaster to put in the trolley and they thought that a plastic draining rack would be a good alternative???!!!! It just defies belief - I felt so sorry for Carl who had to face the customer...........

My alternative wasn't exactly what I wanted but it'll do. I asked for an Iceberg lettuce and got a ordinary round lettuce. I like the iceberg lettuce because it lasts a good week whereas the ordinary round lettuce will probably only last a couple of days, but at least it's a LETTUCE!!!

Okay rant over - I do despair sometimes of the metality of some people and to think they applied for this job and were chosen over others - imagine how much 'thicker' those people must have been not to have been given the job............