The sun is high in the sky and after a long arduous morning filled with reading and writing your stomach starts to rumble. Normally you would go to the Alternative Tuck Shop to grab a lovely artisan avocado and cheese melt on olive ciabatta (its 20p extra but well worth it), or perhaps delve into Taylors to acquire a slightly overpriced pesto chicken panini. But today you find yourself far from the culinary delights of central Oxford and are forced to venture into Tesco’s.
But before you make it in you are accosted by a disgruntled man who says something intelligible to you in what might be English and then hurls what looks like a McFlurry at you. You wouldn’t get that at Taylors but then I guess that’s what you pay the extra two pounds for. Wiping ice cream off your trainers, you approach the huge sliding doors and for the first time understand what a pig might feel being lead into an abattoir: horror, uncertainty and the feeling that this will probably end badly. Nonetheless, your hunger is simply too intense and you soldier on past the security guard who shuffles around the airlock between shop and street.
You are greeted by a cacophony of bleeps. You thank your lucky starts that sound isn’t visual as the equivalent to what you’re experiencing would be starting at a strobe light in an otherwise pitch black room. Not good for your epilepsy. With your ears slowly adjusting, you hesitantly look at the first display and are in luck to find that the sandwiches are at the front of the supermarket. With relief you begin to search for a suitable sandwich but find that you are overwhelmed by the huge selection: Salmon and cucumber, ham and cheddar, Chicken and bacon. All sound like they could be quite nice (except chicken and sweetcorn – that sounds fucking disgusting) but how can you be expected to choose one when there are so many on display?
With shaky hands you reach for the tuna and cucumber – it’s the same sandwich your grandma used to make you whenever you’d visit her in Dorset and always reminds you of carefree days at the beach and long walks in the countryside. The type of feelings that you will need to cling onto if you are to survive this testing ordeal. Sandwich in had you then begin the hunt for some water. But for some reason something is drawing you deeper and deeper into the supermarket. Before you know it you are surrounded by twenty-two different types of basmati rice and several ‘oriental-y’ sauces that would appeal to the middle class house wife looking to spice up Friday nights dinner party. As nice as Caron’s chicken tikka masala might be, you ignore all distractions and stumble onto an Evian.
Wading back through the three-for-two, buy-one-get-one-free and half price signs, you finally make it back to the bit where you pay. Here you’re subjected to more mindless advertising, insisting that you need to buy a packet of Hubba Bubba, some condoms and a twirl. It’s hard to ignore due to the meandering queue that snakes almost back to the basmati rice you’d just escaped.
By the time you get to the front you are longing for some human contact after such a sterile experience but instead you’re greeted by a machine. It’s a very fucking nosey machine at that asking me how many bags I have and whether I have Tesco clubcard. It’s also terrible at its job – I mean how unexpected can an item be if you’re a bagging area? You quickly pay using one of the seven options that they offer and run out of the store feeling slightly nauseous. You’ve made it, you’re done, you can enjoy that sandwich which is tasty and nutritious. Nevertheless, the grisly process you’ve endured to acquire it will never leave you – the two pound extra at Taylors is probably worth it.
