ADVENTURES IN ASDA

ADVENTURES IN ASDA

Yesterday, I told the girl on the ASDA checkout that I had just been released into the community.

She had asked me if I needed help with my packing. I had replied ‘No thanks’. I only had three items: a large roll of cotton wool, a tub of Vaseline and a packet of disposable rubber gloves (more on that story later).

Anyway I took one of those plastic carrier bags but I couldn’t find the opening. I tried rubbing it between my fingers – like I had seen other people do - but no go. I thought I had perhaps got a faulty one, where the machine that makes them had sealed both ends, by mistake.

So I took another. That was the same.

Meanwhile, the conveyor belt behind me was groaning under the weight of the next customer’s shopping - a woman, of course - who looked like she had had prior warning of an imminent famine. She was glaring at me in a most unfriendly manner.

And that was when I said it.

It just came out. The assistant (they do employ some nice looking girls in ASDA) smiled encouragingly, and the plastic film suddenly unsealed itself.

I thrust my purchases into the bag and made for the exit. Janice, a large lady who was ‘Here to help’ as it said on her badge, smiled at me as I left the store.

I retain a certain ambivalence vis a vis supermarkets. On the one hand I enjoy wandering up and down the aisles, looking at all the wondrous merchandise, in the air-conditioned atmosphere. But I also feel sickened by the great trolley-loads of food being pushed by grim faced shoppers; their single-minded search only relaxing as they pause to cuff a screaming infant.

And I think – what about the Third World? I expect they have much smaller trolleys in their supermarkets.



As I turned the corner of my street, I saw a blue Volvo, cruising slowly by the kerb. I am sure it was a ‘left-hand drive’. I darted quickly into the ‘Frog and Strumpet’. I felt my legs shaking as I walked up to the bar to order a large ‘scotch’.