Weekends used to be brilliant, spending hours sat in my boxer shorts on the floor watching shit on TV and playing computer games. Now I’m supposed to be a bit more grown up, and can’t bum about all the time, I have to actually Do Things at the weekend. The things I should do during the week but am too knackered to. Doing Things means Old Person things, the sort of thing that you don’t even think of until you’re old, wouldn’t consider even needed doing.
Things like “going to Ikea”, “mowing the lawn”, “getting rid of the sofa with the fucked spring that’s been sat in the garage for weeks” or “defrosting the freezer”. And so this weekend, rather than wasting a few precious hours playing Fuel on the Xbox, I did All Of The Above.
Honestly, I defrosted the freezer. I even (mostly) resisted the urge just to prod the ice out with a knife. This had been planned for a little while, so the freezer was pretty much empty apart from half a bottle of vodka – who knew ice cold vodka tasted so good, by the way – and a couple of bits that I was promised wouldn’t cause food poisoning if they were defrosted and refrozen. Chips and frozen vegetables, as it happens.
This left us with a problem: Severe lack of food. My usual shopping method is popping to the Tesco round the corner every time I need something and accidentally impulse buying £15 worth of stuff. My bank statements are shameful.
This was a problem too big for a Tesco Metro, this required… (dramatic pause) The Big Shop. I hate The Big Shop, the one where you’re obligated to go down every aisle, just in case. Even the dog food aisle, in case we impulse buy a German Shepherd on the way.
The Big Shop can only be done hungry, because it only comes about when there’s nothing left, when you can’t even eat tinned hot-dog sandwiches because there’s no bread. Or butter. Or tinned hot-dogs. This means you see loads of things that you think “Yes! I’ll eat that tonight!”, and buying loads and loads of fresh stuff with really short expiry dates.
For two days, you’ll eat like a king, and then panic and have to cook 7 sausage rolls just to keep them safe for an extra day. What is the meat in sausage rolls? It’s like no other meat on earth. Try not to think about the gristly bits.
As an aside, it should be noted that if you leave a trolley in the middle of the aisle while you sod off down the other end looking for bread with one extra day on the use-by, the punishment should be confiscation of your trolley and a reminder not to be so fucking inconsiderate. Same if you stand gossiping to your fuckwit friend while blocking the entire row.
Oh, and the worst thing about supermarket shopping is the amount of moving stuff about. From the shelf to the trolley, trolley to the conveyor belt, into bags, bags back into the trolley then into the car, then from the car to the kitchen floor and finally things end up in the fridge. What a bloody hassle.
So the combination of knowing the freezer was empty, having eaten next to nothing all day and a few days of eating the dregs of what we had left in the house meant there was a carefree attitude to throwing things in the trolley. Pizza? We can never have enough pizza! Ooh – ciabatta bread (another sign of growing up – white sliced is no longer enough), lob it in.
Cheese? I love cheese. Best get Stilton, brie and cheddar, just in case. Big bloody great lumps of the stuff so we don’t have to do it next time. Incidentally, I bought some Wookey Hole cheese, which had survived in an underground cave for over a year. Time it lasted in my fridge before going all mouldy? Three bloody weeks.
Anyway, that’s why I bought so much shopping that it wouldn’t all fit in the boot and, er, I’m sorry.
Somehow it cost over a hundred quid.
Shit.
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