OK, I hear you already, Dave are you crazy? ANOTHER shopping rant?
Well the answer to that is both yes and no.....
Kelly told me I was going shopping earlier, that's right TOLD me! I had no say in the matter, and even though she knows it is highly likely that Tesco will be the cause of my death or lifetime's incarceration she wasn't budging. I begged and pleaded to be let off of this highly stressful and demoralising experience.It didn't work, Kelly wheeled out the age old classic excuse "I've not got any makeup on" well I'd just like to say to anybody reading this YOU ARE WELCOME! Not many of you will have seen Kelly without a bit of slap on, and I know this for two reasons, (1) You are still on my friends list, and (2) You haven't been committed to an asylum, strapped to a gurney screaming "Monsters, monsters everywhere!"
So I strapped Charlie into his car seat and we set off for the place I envision as being the closest available equivalent to hell. As we approached Satan's lair I began to get sweaty palms, my heart rate went through the roof and a little voice somewhere in my head was screaming RUN DAVE RUN, GET AWAY AS FAR AS YOU CAN! But Kelly has been cranky for a while now so I told the voice to shut up, much to the confusion of Charlie who thought I was talking to him. He curled his bottom lip downwards and started to get watery eyes, I quickly explained I wasn't talking to him, which confused him even further.
As we crossed the threshold of hell's mouth I took a deep breath, but to my amazement everything felt very civilised..... People were calmly wandering by picking up their items and being rather chipper to be completely honest. It wasn't until I got to aisle 2 that I spotted my first eye watering sight. There, looking at milkshakes (go figure) was possibly the biggest woman I have seen in my entire life, it was a sight to behold. She must have weighed 450 pounds at the very least and was blocking trolley traffic in either direction and causing tailbacks that wouldn't have looked out of place on the M25.
There's nothing unusual about a fat mothertrucker ordinarily, but being a larger person myself I always dress accordingly. But this lady clearly thought 'to hell with the world' I am going to cram myself in to the smallest clothes I can find.... And did she ever! Her denim shorts were so small they were cutting off the circulation to her legs, they looked like a beetroot stained piece of corned beef, which made me want a sandwich (but that's far from relevant at this point) Her top was snug to say the least and looked similar to when you try and put 6 pounds of play doh into an empty bean can. Rolls of loose skin hanged down from the arm holes and swung hypnotically as she waddled along the rows perusing every type of bad for you food you could imagine.
Then it happened, the most amazing, jaw dropping experience of 2014 and possibly far beyond, that I have seen in a long time. Being that it was close to store closing time there was a steady procession of Tesco staff carrying green baskets containing a veritable treasure trove of reduced goods! I have never, and I mean never witnessed a fracas such as this, and don't forget I was born in the age of sticker books where the scream of 'SCRAMBLE' prompted a violent melee to see who could get that elusive Ronny Rosenthal Tottenham Hotspur sticker that they needed to complete their book.
People were grabbing items from the baskets before the staff had a chance to get near the shelves, it was a free for all of biblical proportions. Two elderly gentlemen were grabbing bags of bananas, 5 or 6 bags were whipped out of the basket and it was then that Tesco fell silent. Two other pensioners (Japanese I think) had also made a grab for aforementioned yellow bounty and shit began to get real.
There was a tug of war with a combined age of AT LEAST 320 years, and it was so tense that nobody dared move or intervene. TheJjapanese lady muttered something under her breath which I hope was some form of death threat, then this conversation began.
Japanese lady: Ming hoy doo wah so! (Not racism, that's what it sounded like)
English gent 1: This is our country and our bananas, I had them first!
Japanese man: No, roo donn have divine right to baranas! (My impression is sooo much better in person!)
English gent 2: And you don't have a divine right to be in OUR country.
Japaenese lady: Roo have enough baranas ahready, roo reave some to the rest of us.
English gent 1: Over my dead body!
The Tesco employee looked rather shocked at the exchange and grabbed the barana.... I mean bananas from the pensioners, but this only made matters worse. The arguing had now turned to death stares, and the English lads were looking like they were in a bit of a tight spot. The Japanese couple looked like a pair of retired assassins, ninja's possibly, or the last of the Samurai (Fuck Tom Cruise, I mean the real Samurai) the Japanese lady actually moved her feet to give herself stronger footing and I was sure she was going to roundhouse one of the frail old boys in the jaw.
The man bringing the food out slowly edged his way between the couples towards the reduced shelf, between the steely glares of the Saga holiday clubbers and put the fruit on the shelf. The seniors looked at their fight club partners, then they looked at each other, and as one they all made their way towards the shelf, it was like watching 4 snails race for their lives, it was truly gripping........ However, they didn't count on the fact that I was a lot closer to the shelf than they were, and although a fatty I am still fairly sprightly when there's cheap or free food on the go, so I grabbed them and fucked off. Every time I bumped into the 4 tremblies they gave me a cold glance, if looks could kill I'd definitely have an ingrowing toenail by now.
To round off my shopping trip I taught Charlie my favourite shopping game, Stealth adding! i know it sounds like some quiet form of Mathematics, but it's way more fun than that.
Here are the rules,
1) You walk around looking for a target.
2) You wait for the target to leave their trolley/basket unattended.
3) You grab the highest value/weirdest item within reach and carefully place it in their shopping.
4) you stand back and smirk as they blissfully wander off with £50 worth of condoms and pregnancy tests in their weekly shop.
5) You get bonus points if you see them looking confused at the till as they put aforementioned items on the conveyor belt.
Don't ever tell me I don't give you anything!
Hope you have a great summer, if anything else occurs on my travels I'll keep you posted.
Much love,
Dave.
