I want to share a new trend with you. Tesco's are not content with dominating the grocery market, running an Argos mail order service, going into insurance, banking and mobile phone services, they are now entering the entertainment business.
How did I find out? Well, I had the audacity to want to go grocery shopping on a Sunday afternoon. I thought Tesco's would be empty as everyone with a family, and a life would be doing something on what is usually classed as a family day. You know the sort of thing, snoozing on the sofa, having a barbeque, walking the dog, taking the kids to a park. That was obviously a trend from the last century that has disappeared from the annals of history, like rickets and Trumpton.
How times have changed. Everyone was in Tesco's.
I don't understand TV programming anymore either. There's me thinking it was about entertainment, watching drama, soaps or sport, the odd documentary about wildlife, or a foriegn tribe just discovered in the Amazon. Instead I find it crammed full of gardening programmes, D-I-Y programmes, housebuying, and cookery programmes. Chores. It's only a matter of time before I am told how to iron a shirt properly in the form of a TV series.
Anyway, back to Tesco's. It's now a family outing on a Sunday afternoon. Mum, dad, and the kids all doing the weekly shop. It was a lovely sunny afternoon, just right for kicking a ball about, going for a bike ride, sitting in the garden reading the last ever News of the Screws. Instead families were enjoying wandering around Tescos. I mean, how exciting is it to buy a dozen eggs and a loaf of bread? Families have special rights in the aisle. They can walk four a breast, stop without warning, not walk in a straight line, and not follow the natural up down routes that the rest of us take. I watched a man, asking his wife who was busily loading a packets of mince into the trolley, if they needed mince this week. Meanwhile he was also picking up mince and putting it in the trolley. I knew what I needed to get and couldn't get to it, as they took up the best part of 6 feet with the way they and their trolley were positioned. One of you is surplus to requirements there, and what are you going to do with the extra packets of mince?
It doesn't take both of you to shop, let alone the whole family. Here's some advice.
Husbands, if you don't trust your wife to shop for food, leave her at home and do it yourself. I'm sure there's jobs she could be doing around the house or better still puttig her feet up. If you trust her to do it, why not stay at home and mend that dripping tap (or whatever) she's nagging you about. Alternatively if you have done all your jobs, sit and read the paper in your chair, or if she doesn't drive, the car.
Mum's and dads, once you have decided who is doing the shopping, why don't the other one take the kids to the park, or on a bike ride, or play with them. Believe me they'll love it.
That way, those of us who see shopping as a chore, and are there at that time, because we work all week, and its our only chance to shop, can get round quicker, get out of there and get ourselves out into the fresh air, or have our feet up as well.
This also applies to family outings to B and Q. Kids aren't interested in self tapping screws. Go on your own.
I understand that single parents may have to take their kids round - usually they are frazzled and generally do it in the evenings or Saturdays, as I've tried shopping then as well.
When I was young, I enjoyed playing games, or reading. Shopping was never high on my priority list. When did all that change for children? Maybe if mums (or dads) were left on their own to do the shopping, they could better control the food being put into the trolley, not succumbing to off-spring pressure, and therefore, into their children - less biscuits and cakes, and the children would be outside playing, burning up calories. We wouldn't then have problems with overweight children.
I can just see that in future, loads of personality less people putting down their hobbies as D-I-Y, gardening, and going to Tescos. Far more exciting than mine of watching sport, reading, understanding art and listening to music.
Fairground - Simply Red. It was probably the colour of my face in anger as I got stopped from getting to the n-th aisle by some kid reading the back of a cereal packet.
No comments:
Post a Comment