Category Archives: Shopping

Humans of Farnworth

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My Pepsi Max and shampoo stocks had become severely depleted.  This is a situation that causes me anxiety; I rarely allow myself to get to down to one can of pop, bottle or shampoo or toilet roll before replenishing my stores.  With this in mind, I set off towards the Asda in Radcliffe, only to turn round as I exited the Ringley border – I was sure that my pop was on offer at Tesco.

I could have carried on to the big Tesco at Prestwich, but it’s often difficult to park there because the lazy fuckers a) abandon their stupid massive cars over three or four spaces, and b) leave their shopping trollies in the remaining free parking spots.  The little Tesco at Farnworth would be much better and less likely to result in my blood pressure rising to a level that would make my kidneys explode.

It was a nice trip around the quiet store.  My shampoo and pop were both on offer, I was happy.  I took my little trolley to a till where a woman and a man were having their final few purchases scanned.

Why are you just standing there?  Why aren’t you packing your items in bags?  Come on, they’re not going to pack themselves.

The man on the till scanned the last item, “Twenty six pounds, fifty eight pence please.”

They both looked at him blankly before the man fished something out his pocket and the woman fished something out of her bag, money off vouchers.  They handed them over to the assistant, without speaking.

Then the woman then walked passed me and wandered off to the pop aisle.  What’s going on?  You’ve had your turn, pay up and fuck off.  And why the fuck have you still not bagged your fucking items?  And what is that gormless twat doing just looking like he’s had too many tablets instead of getting this stuff into bags while you’re fannying around getting the stuff that you should’ve got on you way around the store.

What

Are

You

Doing?

She returned with two bottles of pop.  At last!  Come on, get on with it.  Pay up, piss off.

And then she did it again, wandered off back into the store to buy a packet of biscuits.  WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK????

The final items were scanned and joined the pile of items that still hadn’t been bagged.  I pleaded with the assistant with my eyes.  Can’t you shoot them?  Or at least just get them removed from the store? Or just refuse to serve them? “Sorry, missus, you’ve had your chance, off you pop!”

E V E N T U A L L Y and v e r y  s l o w l y, the woman packed the items while the gormless mong accompanying her stood, hands in pockets, staring into space.  S h e  g o t  h e r  p u r s e  o u t  o f h e r  b a g  a n d  p a i d  f o r  t h e  g o o d s.  Good, fuck off, you annoying cunts, let me get on.

The assistant started scanning one of my five packets of pop, but couldn’t slide it down to the packing area because their bags were still there as they had a conversation with another woman who’d come to join them.  That’s right, you check your receipt, don’t mind me, don’t mind anybody but your stupid selfish selves.  Nearly all of my items had been scanned before I could move my trolley to the end of the till and start packing.  As I pulled out of my parking space to leave, they were still fannying around at their vehicle.

There should be a rule at supermarkets: once your stuff starts being scanned, that’s it.  No fucking off back into the store to get something you’ve “forgotten” because you’re a retard.

What the fuck is wrong with people?  Why are people like this even allowed anywhere near normal people?

Because this was Farnworth, and this is what Farnworth is like.  Before the little Tesco was built, the humans of Farnworth had their retail activities restricted to the Asda, shops and market in the town centre, but this store seems to have given them licence to leave the confines of that area and wander around where they can inflict the effects of their inbreeding on normal people.

I’m thinking of running for local government at some point.  As leader of Bolton Council, I will pass a motion to have all Farnworth residents fitted with explosive collars.  One wrong move, one foot outside of the “special zone” and KABLOOEEE!

The world will be a better place when I’m charge.  For me at least.

Crunched

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I’ve been shocked and appalled by the price of things these days. After not really eating for three months, and not buying groceries during this period, I have returned to the world of supermarket shopping to be truly horrified by the escalating cost of living.

Here are some frexamples:

Antiperspirant: was £1.96, now £2.96

Chopped tomatoes: were 24p a can, now 33p a can

Lean minced steak (250g): was £2.19, now £2.69

I can’t think of anything else, I never really look at the price of stuff, but those things really stick out.

All I can say is, fucking hell, things were much cheaper when I was starving myself.  But not as much fun, obviously.

I’ve now rekindled my fondness for messing about in the kitchen and seeing what I can make from my cupboard that includes the staples: onions, garlic, chilli, ginger, chopped tomatoes, chick peas, olive oil, herbs, spices, pasta (a variety), rice.  It’s not surprising that I’m a whiz at dishing up a red sauce for pasta and chick pea curry.  Nice though.

I should be more adventurous, I have the skills.  I’ve threatened my good friends Taz and Pig with a lasagne.  It’s not really a threat, my lasagne is usually fuckin’ delish, even if I do say so myself.  Based on Mum’s recipe, which she stole from a genuine Italian woman, so it’s authentic and everything.  I even do a veggie version for my friends that uses Quorn instead of minced steak and it goes down a treat with them, and me.  Apart from the first time I made it….

Take yourselves back to the summer of 2000.  I was having a bit of a rough time of things for one reason or another and my dear friends opened their home in Leeds to me most weekends so I could spend some time away from the solitude of my life in Sheffield.  We did normal, boring things, like doing a bit of gardening, sitting in the sunshine, cooking, watching TV, smoking… lots of smoking.

One day me and David decided to make a lasagne together.  The red sauce was made and it was time to get on with the bechemel – easy peasy, I’d seen my mum do this a million times and it looked a doddle.  Using her method, I warmed milk in a pan and made an emulsion from cornflour and cold milk.  At least I thought it was cornflour, but I couldn’t be sure because David had a habit of taking the labels off everything, it had the right powdery consistency, so I went with it.  The warmed milk was added to the flour/milk emulsion and returned to the heat to thicken.  Only it didn’t.  So more flour emulsion was added without much success.  I found some different flour and tried that and it thickened a little bit, so I went with it – adding grated nutmeg, salt, pepper, mozzarella, parmesan, etc, etc.  The dish was assembled and cooked and we sat down to eat with the summer sun still relatively high in the evening sky, shining through their dining room window where it emanated a warming yellow glow.

We each took a mouthful of our meal, paused simultaneously and looked at each other with puzzled expressions on our faces.  Speaking over each other, the three of us uttered the words “Does this taste a bit sweet to you?”.

So the moral of this story: don’t take the labels off things in your store cupboard; icing sugar doesn’t half look like cornflour to the clinically depressed.

Fag patches

Following my short-lived attempt to give up smoking back in October, I have decided that the time is right to make a proper effort at weening myself off the delightful weed and today, I am wearing a fag patch.

Apart from itching like a bastard and nearly falling off after just ten minutes, things have settled down and I’ve been OK today.  On a day when I have been looking at spreadsheets from the comfort of my own home, a day when normally I’d have been chain smoking to get me through the boredom, I’ve not wanted one.  Well, of course I’ve wanted a cigarette, but I’ve decided that I’m not going to have one, so I’ve been OK.

The problem with being a bored smoker as opposed to an addicted smoker is that nicotine patches don’t really do much to substitute the punctutation of your day that smoking a cigarette affords.  Instead though, the slow and constant release of nicotine provides a different type of punctutation in that you find that you nearly shit yourself every hour, on the hour.

I’m looking forward to going to bed wearing my 24hr patch.  It’ll bring nightmares and much grinding of teeth, and possibly a few emergency trips to the en suite.

All part of life’s rich tapestry.

Yackety Yack

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