The basket case
BEWARE: ELEANOR ROBERTSON IS SPYING ON YOUR SHOPPING.
One of the first things I stopped doing when COVID-19 happened was shopping in person at the supermarket. The thought of all those strangers squeezing my avocados with their grimy little hands was too much to bear – plus, I knew spending time indoors with so many people was microbiologically identical to shaking up a big aerosol can of mixed-source saliva and blasting it in my face. I’m not usually a germaphobe, but I’ve seen Dawn of the Dead enough times to know that consumer society and infectious diseases have a powerful relationship of mutual reinforcement. Going to Woolies during an active pandemic felt about as wise as visiting a coffin shop during a vampire crisis.
But now that our country has reached a place where supermarket shopping seems like a viable option again, I’ve gone back to the old me. I love the supermarket. Apart from snuffling around the discount cheese bin like a starving piglet, the thing I love most about it is rubbernecking at what other people put in their trolleys. It’s like the ‘my day on a plate’ feature that used to run in the Sunday paper, except it’s regular people instead of show-off celebrities who claim to eat nothing but rare earth minerals and sacred algae.
The shopping trolley gives you a glimpse into the domestic sphere that’s usually only available to family members, invited guests, and the several dozen advertising companies that buy your browsing data and purchase history on the open market. There are a few groups
I can recognise at a quick glance: big families, where most of the shop is made up of Weet-bix, discount mince, apples, broccoli and bulk toilet paper; yuppie couples who do half-size shops laden with vegan granola and skinless salmon fillets; and retirees, who tend to favour pet food, tea bags and products I’ve never seen before in my life and have to google (What the fuck is junket? Oh, it’s a sweet, milk-based dessert set with vegetable rennet… what the fuck?).
My personal favourite trolley type is the nutcase bargain hunter. These people cut across all demographics, but they have one thing in common: they refuse to pay full price for anything. I have deep respect for this mindset, where brand loyalty is considered a form of irrationalism on par with ritual animal sacrifice. The store’s home-brand basics will be over-represented in the basket (home-brand bread, butter, milk, eggs, canned goods, etc), but there are always some wild cards that were on such deep discount that the bargain hunter couldn’t resist. Ninety per cent off size 00 baby singlets? Better get 12. Barely cracked tupperware for 55 cents on the ‘next stop is the bin’ shelf? Sure, why not. I can’t help but admire the way these folks embrace spontaneity: “Oh, chicken hearts are on special? I guess it’s time for me to learn how to cook chicken hearts! Such wonders life throws my way!”
Then there are the real wild cards – the trolleys and baskets that make you wonder whether the shopper is buying props for a low-budget indie film. Recently, I saw a young man buying eight packets of adhesive wall hooks, a bunch of bananas and a pregnancy test. It exercises the mind to think what would be happening at his house. He’s just moved and needs to hang up all his posters, his housemate had a broken condom incident last night, and he has a severe potassium deficiency? Or maybe he’s putting up his festive fairy lights and making a banana cake to celebrate his girlfriend getting pregnant with a much-wanted child? People pay money for lists of short-story prompts that aren’t as good as this. It’s selfish, I know, but if everyone could just stay safe and wear a mask so I can keep going to the supermarket to spy on people, I’d be extremely grateful. Thanks.