Alternate reality

Asda. A strange place at the best of times.

Our office is only a five minute walk from the local “superstore”. It’s like a social experiment. I often wander around agog at the things people think are appropriate to wear when grocery shopping. On the plus side, the prices are ace and I always come away feeling better about myself.

In the lobby bit outside the main doors, there’s a display of patio furniture. You know, a display. Like where they put stuff out with the prices on it so you can see how it looks and decide whether you might want to buy it. Inspired the phrase “for display purposes only”. You wouldn’t generally take it as an invitation to take the weight off your feet while waiting for your spouse/sister/helper to finish trudging round the store, breathing through their mouth and filling the trolley with processed food in brightly coloured boxes (the manufacturers are missing an opportunity for a great inter-company game of Pro-Am Inappropriate Packaging Wars. I am of the firm belief that as long as there’s a picture of a pizza/pasty/frozen roast dinner on the front, and some primary coloured shapes, they could write anything they liked in the Nutrition Information panel and nobody buying that shit on a regular basis would ever, ever spot it. Things like “May contain strychnine in fatal quantities. Please ensure that your family can afford to bury you before attempting to ingest”. If I worked for Dr Oetker I would totally do that). Unless, of course, you’re the sort of brain-dead, low-browed shuffler that makes up at least half* of the regular clientele at our local Asda.

About three weeks after the display first went up, a sign appeared asking people not to sit at the table and eat their sandwiches. Then one asking people not to smoke at the table. I was already wondering what on earth possessed people to sit at a display of garden furniture and have a spot of lunch (in full view of everyone entering and leaving the store), considering that they would have had to have moved an enormous price label from everything before settling down. The practice eased off (I expect they employed a member of staff to read the notice out to people) and Asda took its collective eye off the ball. They got complacent.

As we approached the lobby this lunchtime it became apparent that, in view of the current heatwave (Look Out! Global Warming! Death! Horror! Destruction! Ice Lollies!), the display of tables and chairs had been replaced with furniture a little more suitable for sunbathing. Top idea Asda. Well done you.

The large hairy lady reclining on the sun lounger, with shopping placed carefully nearby, dirty flip flops on the floor in front of her and a refreshing bottle of own-brand cola on the side table seemed ever so happy with the new arrangements. I am fully expecting to go back tomorrow and find that someone has dragged the lounger into the car park in order to catch a bit more sun.

Jesus. Some people really have no shame.**

* The rest of the shoppers are people from our office and middle-class mothers doing that reverse snobbery thing where they have a coffee morning and conspicuously put own-brand Asda biscuits out so that they can talk earnestly about how it’s all the same, you know. Of course, they never eat any of them – they wouldn’t want to spoil the organic corn-fed chicken they bought from Waitrose for tea.

** I might be over-sensitive about this sort of thing. I was brought up to believe that you should never eat while walking down the street, and that brushing your hair in front of people is horrifyingly rude. Therefore I would never eat my lunch from display furniture. No. I would die of shame. I’m not judging you though – please feel free to go right ahead and take a picnic to your local garden centre. I’m sure they’d be happy to see you. Really.