Speaker’s corner
AFELLOW columnist once wrote about how women should shop. I warned him that telling women how to do “anything” was fraught with danger and that, certainly, telling a woman how to shop was like me going up to Mike Tyson and showing him how to throw a punch.
But my friend maintained that if women shopped efficiently they would be able to find time to learn something really useful, like plumbing.
I could, if I wanted, tell you the background to this – and even what happened after. But, of course, we columnists don’t rat on each other. Well, hardly ever. Certainly nothing would persuade me to discuss my colleague’s private life. What? R10? OK. Well, when his wife, whom, to save embarrassing anybody, we shall call Mildred, (although her real name is Bethanie), came home with a bottle of imported olives, he reminded her it was time she learned that “olives don’t grow on trees”, they cost serious money.
He said she should take the advice in his article and make a list of what she needed before going to the shops so she would not be tempted to buy extraneous stuff. Whereupon Mildred, as cool as the Free State in July, took out her credit card, cut it into small pieces, and told him: “Okay Smarty Pants, from now on you do the shopping!”
And so it was that my friend found himself at the supermarket testing the spin on each trolley wheel before setting off for item number one on his list – bread.
Now supermarkets never have bread near the entrance because this would enable people, who might need only bread, to rush in and rush out – the last thing supermarkets want people to do.
First my hapless friend had to go past the sweets which, naturally, he ignored until he spotted red liquorice shoelaces. He hadn’t seen red liquorice shoelaces since his first childhood.
He bought a couple of metres and then saw extra-strong mints in the same old tube he knew from his youth. He tossed three tubes into the trolley. Then he caught sight of the savoury biscuits. The picture on the packet showed biscuits with mussels and shrimps on them. He bought two big packets (for economy) and now needed to find mussels and shrimps. This was when he saw the tins of imported crab meat!
At the delicatessen counter he saw French Emmental and called the assistant with the plastic gloves, who asked how much he wanted. Holding thumb and forefinger far apart he said, “That much”. She cut it for him and then he saw genuine Gorgonzola and made the same sign.
He arrived at the bread and ticked it off his list. The bread was fresh and his stomach began to grind. Fresh bread – must get butter. And strawberry jam. Or anchovy paste? Both!
The next item on his list was milk. Now supermarkets employ specially trained people to hide the milk so that shoppers have to run a gauntlet of products whose labels, designed by psychologists, cry out, imploringly: “Take me! I’m only R49.99.”
My friend, mesmerised by the specially selected music, colours and aromas worked out by shrinks, was helplessly led this way and that like a puppet on a string.
“Gosh,” he found himself saying, “a special on All Bran! And cheese cloth at only R9.99.” And a special offer on spanners – only R89.99. And frozen prawns!
He was now pushing one trolley in front and pulling another behind and when he got to the checkout counter he thought they were joking.
The checkout woman put his card through the machine and all the lights dimmed. He had to put a lot of stuff back and he began to realise why people have this compulsion for hurling supermarket trolleys into streams.