Standing in the small queue at my local Strangebury's tonight, I saw something happen that was a defining moment for me as to how ludicrous "things" have become.
There was a man right in front of me, smartly dressed in a not-inexpensive suit, who was putting his purchases on the check-out counter.
He had a pizza, a bottle of Pepsi and half-a-pound of Cheddar.
He then asked the check-out person (a woman, late-50s, I'd guess) for a packet of Wriggley's and a box of matches.
She turned around, got the chewies and the matches then, as she placed them in the carrier bag, suddenly froze.
"How old are you?" she demanded.
Obviously taken aback, the customer informed her that he was nineteen.
She then lunged forward into his carrier bag, retrieved the box of matches and, clutching them to her chest, exclaimed triumphantly: "You're not allowed to buy matches then! You have to be 21."
Stunned and embarrassed, the fellow spluttered: "Excuse me? I'm a manager in a design agency. You see that new Astra out there...*points through shop window to parked car*...That's mine."
The cashier was unmoved: "It doesn't matter. We're not allowed to sell you matches. It's...THE LAW!"
The guy shook his head, paid his bill and left - probably, if he has any sense, NEVER to return to Sainsbury again as long as he lives.
I have to say I was equally stunned by all this.
I thought, just how twisted and paranoid has the country become when it won't allow a 19-year-old man to buy a bloody box of matches?
Then I thought, perhaps it's nanny Sainsbury well overstepping the mark again, as it does with alcohol sales by not letting anyone "appearing to be" under the age of 25 buy beer.
And it also crossed my mind that maybe the more logical explanation was that the cashier was simply another Sainsbury Local nut job, who are legion, as anyone who has the misfortune to ever go there will know.
Whatever the reason, the episode left me angry and a bit depressed.
I don't know if the piffling, mundane, everyday indignities we all suffer in one form or another have anything to do with the deadly, creeping paranoia of Westminster or not.
But something very bad indeed is seeping into the English psyche and corrupting the country's spirit at the moment - and where it will end, I really don't like to think.
