Shopping List

When I unfold the little child’s seat at the front of the trolley, there it is lying innocuously on the square of blue plastic: a folded piece of paper. Just as I can’t pass a ringing phone, so I can’t see a piece of folded paper that has a flash of handwriting on it and not turn it over.
But I’m a bit pushed for time so I lean on the trolley handle with my wrists and cruise off, unfolding the paper as I move past the crates of strawberries. I love looking at other people’s shopping lists, don’t you? Always fascinating. You think we all buy the same staples – flour, chicken, ketchup, storecupboard bits, onions, bread, milk, tea, coffee, some fresh fruit and veg, washing powder…
But no, if you’re not already a shopping list snooper, you won’t know. You get all sorts, some very random combinations. Take this one I found last week:
Scallops
Organic Butter
Samphire
Organic ribeye x 2
Fresh hollandaise sauce
Tenderstem broccoli
Smoked garlic
Organic Maris Pipers
Sparkling water
Sancerre
Olive Oil
Tiramisu
Duck eggs
Sourdough
Pot Noodle
Frozen Peas
Coke
McCain’s burgers
Here is someone desperate to impress with an amazing meal, confident there’ll be a need to serve an equally posh breakfast the next morning. Then when their paramour is finally booted out, a swift – and cheap? – reversal to the bachelor lifestyle.
What about this?
Cider
Chicken nuggets
Frozen pizza
Sprite
Student, definitely.
Or this?
Chicken
Frozen cauliflower & peas
Potatoes
Milk chocolate
Self-raising flour
Butter
Carrots
24 pack toilet
Kitchen roll
Gin
A busy mother, for sure.
The list I find today though is totally different and I find myself drifting along the aisles without so much as a glance at the shelves, my own shopping list lying forgotten at the bottom of my coolbag. It says:
Ruthless
Ordinary-looking
Quick-witted
Aura
Not too tall
Strong
Nocturnal
Sense of humour
Articulate
Bold
Brave
So, this is someone shopping for…a person? How peculiar. It can’t be a lonely hearts, surely – who would be looking for a ruthless, ordinary-looking, nocturnal partner? I decide I don’t want to think about that. In fact, the bubbly rush I get nosing around in other people’s lists has evaporated very suddenly. It feels colder and darker in here and I find I can’t remember what I came in for. In a bit of a daze, I abandon the trolley in the aisle and leave by the nearest exit.
I feel like I’m coming down with a fever, everything around me seems faded away somehow and my senses are heightened so that I can almost feel them buzzing around between my ears.
I’m in such a hurry to leave that I almost bump into her. A lady of late middle age, quite portly, dressed rather eccentrically even though everything she is wearing is black. I mumble an apology and she smiles and says, “Ah, the apprentice at last.”
Mad as a brush, clearly, so I lower my head and start to scurry away, but she nudges my arm and nods her head to the list which I didn’t realise I was still clutching. “So, how many items? Most people are definitely five or less,” and she gives a great big belly laugh at her own supermarket-related joke. I look again at the list. I’m not sure about being ruthless, brave or bold but I suppose the others do ring a bit of a bell. Apart from aura, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.
As I hesitate, the old lady looks at me shrewdly as though she can hear my inner monologue and says, “Don’t worry about the aura – I could see yours coming a mile off, that’s why I stuck around. Oh dear, you do look bamboozled. It’s not all eye of frog, toe of newt anymore these days, if that’s what you’re worried about – a lot of the stuff we use now is synthetic. Same with the broomsticks, they’re a much easier ride, more comfortable, go-faster stripes, the lot.” She gives me a sympathetic smile. “It’s a lot to take in, I know, and a big decision. I think we should go back to mine and talk it all through properly, you must have questions.” And she smiles again, reaches for my hand, gives it a tough squeeze and the world just seems to crumble away.

Alex Jury

Latest posts by Alex Jury (see all)
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- Shopping List - 20/04/16
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