First, you have to tackle the car park, which is like a real-life game of Tetris, but with angry SUVs. You’ll circle for a spot, eyeing a woman loading her trolley with three shovels and a bag of birdseed. She’s not leaving soon, you mutter, and you’d be right. Eventually, you park so far away that the walk to the entrance counts as your cardio for the week.
And then there’s the trolley dash. You grab one, and it immediately has a wobbly wheel that sounds like a dying robot. You pretend you don’t care, but you secretly hate that wheel for the next hour.
The Aisles of Eternal Life
Inside, it’s a sensory overload. The lighting is so bright you could perform surgery, and the smell of fresh bread fights with the scent of cleaning products. You come for milk, but the entrance immediately begs you to buy a three-foot-tall cuddly dinosaur. Resist, you tell yourself. You never resist.
The middle aisles are a Bermuda Triangle of temptation. One minute you’re looking for bin bags, the next you’re holding a novelty barbecue shaped like a pig. It’s common to see a dad staring blankly at a shelf of lightbulbs, whispering, “But what kind of bayonet?” We’ve all been that dad.
