File this under things that will probably never happen at Costco  — a Spanish dating craze that involves flipping pineapples upside down in grocery carts and canvassing for some amor between the aisles. 

If that sounds a little coconuts, it is worth recalling that Spain is the country that made a national sport of men in brightly colored tights fighting bulls to the death. So next to that, using exotic fruit to score a date seems tame. 

It has certainly become a thing, at any rate, which started predictably enough with a video snippet on TikTok that referenced a popular supermarket chain in Spain, Mercadona and its optimal witching hour, or perhaps hitching hour is more apt: between 7pm and 8pm. 

It is during that narrow après office window that would-be Spanish lovebirds are flocking to their produce section  of the nearest Mercadona, grabbing the nearest pineapple and placing it upside down in their grocery carts. 

That is just the first step. Once the lovelorn shopper spots another upside down pineapple in another person’s cart, they will tap their cart against that person’s cart, should they find the shopper attractive. If the feeling is mutual, expect your trolley to get bumped in return.

According to some Spanish reports, the would-be paramours are also seen wheeling their way to the wine aisle to prospect for fellow pineapple wielders there.

The trend has become so popular that store employees at a Mercadona branch at Bilbao reportedly had to call the police to help manage a flash mob of singles. No arrests were made and the crowd was quick to disperse.

It is worth recalling that this trend could probably never happen in France, where people tend to be more passionate about food than one another (well, with some exceptions), or Britain, where whole pineapples are presumably too pricey to stockpile for non gustatory purposes. 

The Spanish grocery store company is in on the game, to a degree. According to some press reports, on its own TikTok account Mercadona posted an image of a pineapple of sorts along with the caption, “The pineapple on the shelf of Mercadona waits for you to get a date.” However, an official Mercadona source tells the Sun that the company actually has no profile on TikTok.

The same source does confirm that “the flirting phenomenon has appeared spontaneously between our clients in our supermarkets.”

Social media fads come and go, but Europe has no shortage of myths that find their way into lifestyle trends. In Ireland, people still kiss the Blarney Stone in the hope of getting the gift of gab (and hopefully not getting Covid in the process). In Cyprus, swim around Aphrodite’s rock three times, ideally under the moonlight, and you will definitely fall in love not long thereafter. 

For now, the quest for love has led to pineapple shortages in some Spanish stores. That may be the reason that another European chain that has hopped on the fruity romance bandwagon, the Germany-based Lidl, asks that date-seeking customers switch out the spiky fruit for watermelons instead.

How to turn a watermelon upside down without damaging other items in one’s basket might be a topic for discussion on that elusive thing called a second date.