Saturday, October 18, 2008

Supercilious Self Righteousness


There I was yesterday, at Coles Supermarket in Firle, shopping list in my hand and eagerly checking out the blueberries and strawberries. They looked great, were in abundance and most importantly, were on special.









After grabbing my share (punnets of blueys can be frozen - yee hah - that's the kind of excitement I'm into these days), I finished wandering through the vege section which peters out into the bakery and deli areas.

Idly eyeing off the Cherry Bakewells, pink iced donuts and peanut butter cookies, I was full of internal self congratulation when I elected not to put any of them in my trolley and reached for the wholemeal pitta, multigrain sliced and crumpets instead.

Next to me, a woman as wide as she was tall was chatting happily to her husband as she eagerly seized a 12-pack of day-old cinnamon donuts, marked down in black texta to $1. "I can have these you know, because I've been good all week and eating my Weight Watchers stuff, and I've designated Fridays as my sugar days."

Her husband, taller but no less wide, considered this logic for a moment. He stopped pushing the trolley towards the onions and potatoes and looked at her face; so happy with her badness bargain. "Um, but won't you undo a lot of your hard work if you eat that?"

It was then that her inner Nigel Tufnel came through. "But this speaker goes up to eleven," she said. Actually she didn't say that. What she did say was, "But for six days I've been really good, so today I can eat whatever I want."

He remained puzzled but unsure how to tackle this. Perhaps more than one thought was swirling inside his head at that moment - Do I discourage her efforts so far; Will she share those sugary buggers with me; Isn't she now talking about those cheese-n-bacon scrolls over there; Perhaps she's right- one out of seven isn't such a bad risk after all. In the end, he took the packet from her, and placed it gently on top of the four 2-litre bottles of coke that were already in their trolley.

I smiled at them vaguely, to let them know I might have heard some of their discussion but wasn't judging them for it in any way and wheeled on towards the tinned tomatoes.

My smugness at my own trolley's contents stayed with me, increasing exponentially as I noted that I'd finally remembered to bring in the green shopping bags and had already been for a run that morning and eaten an orange. I was David St Hubbins - not quite as dim as Nigel and at least trying to develop a new stage show (Stone 'enge) and try hard.

That is, until I got home, put the fresh stuff in the fridge and remembered, in the third-to-last aisle just before the dairy but after the dry dog food - that I'd snatched up these little beauties:




....because they were on special. It was then I realised that I was but two stone and ten years away from having the exact same conversation - albeit in the confectionery aisle and not the bakery section - with Love Chunks. Or the doctor monitoring my glucose and cholesterol levels.

12 comments:

ashleigh said...

Ah but if you go for a dark chocolate there is not so much sugar. So it MUST be healthy and GOOD for you.

Steer clear of the sweet milky shite!

franzy said...

I judge. Nothing breaks my heart more than "bad" food bargaining. This little example more so because just eating Weight Watchers was obviously supposed to be the "hard work" she was rewarding herself with.

My (overweight) cousin was recently telling me that the reason she struggles with her weight so much is because growing up both praise and empathy arrived in the form of cream, fat and sugar, rather than say, activities.

Miles McClagan said...

That's like the best joke on the Royle Family when Cheryl's Mum says that Cheryls diet was going really well, and "then she had a fish supper" and everyone goes "awwww" as if it was the fish suppers fault

I guess I was lucky in my case praise came in the form of a tramampaline...

River said...

You remembered your green shopping bags? Yay you. Now THAT'S progress!
Chocolate calories don't count when it's your job, and aren't you a chocablog reviewer?

Duni said...

My hubby's developed a chocolate allergy? Can you believe it? I have to hide my stash and eat it secretly now.

Baino said...

I am so self-conscious about people 'judging' my trolley that I don't even go down the biscuit, soft drink or chockky aisle! I have no such problem however in the bottle shop adjacent to the supermarket.

And it shits me big time when they put dairy stuff in a plastic bag . . .it can go in the green bag with the vegies, they're all gonna live in the fridge together after all!

Whaat? No iced coffee? Now that's healthy.

River said...

Hoo-wee! NOW I see,
My problem all along
Is not believing I was wrong.
A salad at lunch does NOT earn me
A dessert or two after tea.

Sarah Gostrangely said...

Ah but they were on offer.

That makes 'em fair game because you are saving money. In the long run will end up rich and therefore it won't made if you look like a Roller Pig.

Weight Watchers are food fascists for sure. I went for two years and I swear it was so like Fat Fightahs in Little Britain.

squib said...

I've gone off Lindt in recent years, just too rich. I really like Cadbury's Snack, esp the pineapple and strawberry squares, yum yum

Kath Lockett said...

Ashleigh, rest assured the milky white stuff aint considered chocolate - let alone a viable food - in the Lockett House

Franzy - I've been guilty of good cancelling out bad more times than I'm prepared to admit. And of course my late-life zits and migraines have absolutely nothing to do with my chocolate addiction whatsoever.

Oh Miles, I *longed* for a trampoline, but got home made stilts (welded poles made by my Dad, so they tended to sink into the grass and leave me stranded there, so no balancing issues for me)and a netball ring that was set in a wheel rim full of concrete. If the ball went in it would bounce off the cement and over into the neighbour's garden.

River - sadly, the only chocolate in the photo I had eaten or reviewed before were the Twix cappuccino bars. The others were my usual staples.

Duni. Oh, your poor husband. He has my utterly deepest sympathies.

Baino - there's ALWAYS iced coffee in my trolley. Like the chocolate, it's a given.

Sarah - Weight Watchers, Fat Fighters, Butt Busters - they're all the same - just after your money and forcing you to eat their ridiculously expensive little meals. Give me a good run and some fruit and veg any day. Oh and chocolate and iced coffee of course.....

Squib, Cadbury Snack is thisclose to being as bad as white 'chocolate' in my opinion!

Melanie Myers said...

I'm struggling to find the appeal of a dozen stale donuts in the first place. Now, if that was me in the trolley lane, as opposed to you Kath, you wouldn't read anything on my face that says I think that woman deserves her great big fat arse and how about exercising some self-control for a change, but you can bet her future insulin injections I'd be thinking it on the inside as I stride past with my sugarless/fatfree grocery basket. I'm not particularly charitable when it comes to the eating habits of the fat & slovenly. You are obviously a little kinder :-)

Bikran said...

cant get enough of them no matter what.I call myself a chocoholickpohj