Death by Shopping

I shouldn't be here. I should be unpacking nine bags of shopping.

'How many bags you got?'
I'd considered this for long enough to make the woman behind me tut.
'Fifteen.'
The boy scout behind the till stopped chewing gum to give me a look. A 'you're lying,' look. I mean how much do you get off your shopping for using your own bag? A penny? I had nine big bags. I could have had thirty tiny bags. Very mean of me but even meaner of Costalot.

I felt mean because not only do supermarkets filter out every sunbeam that threatens to disrupt the carefully engineered enviroment of grey conformity, they filter out your soul too. I think they do it at the sliding doors. They leach it out of you along with your personality. They don't want oddly shaped customers any more than they want pimpled pears. And it's all our own fault. We've deserted our village shops to save time and money. And have we saved time and money? Not me but then I lose shopping lists and impulse buy.

Tomorrow I'm going to see my butcher,Jim, who may or may not have his teeth in. At nearly eighty he's about twenty years too old to work in Costalot and he'll insist on telling you the kill number of the bit of beef you've just bought - with cash cos he don't like the visa machine. Yay.