Friday, October 12, 2007

Supermarket Heaven


Is this not pleasing? I almost said beautiful but that would perhaps be overstating what is, after all, simply a trip to the supermarket. Sorry about the fact you can’t make it larger and have the experience of almost being there – this due to my not having adjusted mobile phone settings – but you can still see, can’t you, the serene, unpeopled space, the shiny floor of which has just been trodden by the feet of Signs who has just picked up a packet of Purina chicken and rice cat food. This is how it usually is in Waitrose in my little town, a very different picture to the Sainsbury’s experience where most people seem to go because it’s thought to be cheaper (depends what you get) and there is more choice (I’ll live with that). There are shop assistants who stop what they are doing and help you find whatever it is you are looking for. They seem to know what they are doing, what is on the shelves and whether there is likely to be such-and-such in the next few days. Walking up and down the the aisles I have fun pretending to be Stepford Wife, adjust my features to look like Katharine Ross (it’s the 1975 version I like), play muzak in the head, beam benignly at people for no good reason, and if someone were to tell me to “have a nice day” I would probably reply, “yes, thank you, I will.”
This is how my life needs to be at the moment - uncluttered, simple and serene.
Yeah, right.

14 comments:

Anna MR said...

Oh, you and me both, Girl Princeling, you and me both. Maybe we could move to a virtual Waitrose, somewhere. We could (serenely) discuss books and things, and there'd be no mess or things out of place and and and and and.

sobiebg, Signs - I think it means something, but am too cluttered to realise, what.

Tired mwah. Hope you're okay.

Kahless said...

The instant I saw the photo I thought to myself - no people, what heaven.

Uncluttered, simple, serene - does that exist?

:-)

The Moon Topples said...

Signs, I hope you will not mind, but I have linked this post as a part of the Phoctober event going on at my site.

Reading the Signs said...

Hi back atcha, Anna, and yes, I think we should conduct our retreats in my local waitrose.

Have a good weekend (mwah!) - and chill.

Kahless - to think that heaven was there all along in a supermarket aisle and I never spotted it before!

Mr. Moon, I am honoured but not very deserving, considering the standard of other photos I have seen over at yours.

I have just put up a load of pics of a sock monkey who has come to live with me.

Unknown said...

That image is deeply Stepford Wives! Scarily so! Funny I thought of doing some supermarket shots for Moon T's phoktober but there are always just so many people and someone would feel bound, I'm sure, to arrest me for suspicious behaviour! (yes, okay, so more suspicious behaviour than usual!) ;-)

Reading the Signs said...

Do it anyway, Vanilla - supermarkets are so much part of our lives that we need to find all kinds of ways of looking at them. I suppose, on the other hand, we could avoid them altogether, as I am often tempted to do. But don't get arrested.

Pants said...

Hi Signs

If I had a kind of supermarket, this would be it. I hate them. I hate Tesco more than any other but I go there because it is the only supermarket within walking distance and our little local Tesco is the on the site of the original market stall in Well Street where it all began. I also go there because the staff are lovely and it's constantly threatened with closure because Tesco opened a big supermarket five minutes walk away.

Many disabled people use the Well Street Tesco and it would be difficult for them if it closed down. I buy my veg from Abel and Cole, meat from the Turkish butcher, fish from the fish monger and eggs/herbs/grains etc from George at the Well Street Health Food Shop but one still has to get toilet paper.

xxx

Pants

Reading the Signs said...

I hate them too, Pants, and can actually manage quite well without setting foot in one as there are so many good alternatives where I live. But there is, as you say, the toilet paper. And the times when I fancy playing Stepford Wives - preferably all on my own.

Anna MR said...

Oh and woe, Pants and Signs, for the times when you still could go and get stuff from fishmongers and bakers. Over in my city, those times have gone, to live on where my childhood is.

Anna MR said...

Oh and woe, Pants and Signs, for the times when you still could go and get stuff from fishmongers and bakers. Over in my city, those times have gone, to live on where my childhood is.

Reading the Signs said...

Oh woe and twice woe, Anna, for it is indeed worth saying more than once. Oh, yes! You must move to the Edge, as I have done, to have those things still. And not all Edges have them. So many are just sad, drive-through places with barely a post office and no centre. I am fortunate.

Anna MR said...

Hang on a minute - why has my comment sta-stammered? Hate it when that happens. I think your jinx is about to make a reappearance, Signs.

Maggie said...

Oh blissfully bare floors! I hate hate hate going to supermarkets, they never have empty floors like that where I go... There is stuff stacked on the floor, and empty boxes, and boxes where someone has started stacking the shelf by it and they just abandoned the enterprise. Hell to navigate round in a wheelchair, and just as bad on foot when you need a stick so you don't fall over from vertigo. Grrrr!

Can you tell I'm envious? ;-)

Best wishes from brightening Liverpool

Reading the Signs said...

- and best wishes to you, Maggie, from the darkening Edge.