What Other People Eat

One disadvantage of being lazy enough to have your groceries brought to your door by the nice people at Tesco is that sometimes you do not always get everything you order. Sometimes things are out of stock, or not available in the quantity that you require. Sometimes you will get a 'substitution', where they'll give you something that's sort-of like what you asked for, because they don't have what you asked for.

Then again, sometimes you just get something else entirely. Last week (and I should have written about it sooner, I know) I found that I ended up with five bags of someone else's shopping. I did phone them up to let them know, and they said that the driver might come back to get them - but then again, they might not. After all, some people might not want any groceries that have spent a few hours in someone else's smelly old hallway.

It happens that the driver did not come back for them, and therefore to the victor go the spoils. As I look through the items in the other bags, I form a mental picture of the kind of interesting lifestyle that they must lead. Not for them the Pot Noodle and Chocolate Milk. Not in these bags, anyway. No, these mystery shoppers buy products that are different to those that I would select. This therefore makes them unusual and exotic. What kind of people would buy items like this?

Unsweetened soya milk. Presumably from unsweetened soya cows. How very curious.

One large cucumber. OK, nothing unusual about this. Stop laughing. Lots of people enjoy cucumbers, both in sandwiches and as part of a properly cooked and assembled main meal.

Wholemeal pitta bread. Oo, exotic. Not sure this would fit in the toaster.

Wholemeal Tortilla Wraps. Hm. Spicy.

Three tins of sweetcorn. Oo, I like sweetcorn. Never had it from a tin before, though.

Mexican spice mix. Aha, it looks like our mystery shoppers are slaves to convenience food after all. Well, perhaps slightly.

Whole washed chilli peppers. Far out. But amongst an otherwise very healthy and herbal and wholemeal selection of products, these chilli peppers do not fit the ethos of the obvious hippies who ordered them. Why? Well, it says quite clearly on the wrapper that these chillies are from Zimbabwe. My limited understanding of world politics tells me that supporting Zimbabwe is not cool at all.

One jar of barbeque sauce. Yuk.

Apple juice. Ah, at last, something which I might be able to use.

So I guess this bonus shopping is not a complete washout. In an attempt to broaden my mind, I may well sample some, most, or all of these items - although the chillies can go straight in the bin along with the barbeque sauce, because I am not at home to any such things. But who knows, I might find that I actually like soya milk, even if it is the "unsweetened" variety, which sounds even more harsh and austere a regime than even having ordinary soya milk along with your wholemeal tortillas.

A few bags of my shopping weren't delivered that week, either. In my case it was a few bags of white bread that went missing. Perhaps they got delivered to the hippies. I'm sure they would disapprove. Or maybe they will consume it anyway, as it was free, and I will have set them on the road to ruin. Who knew that a simple weekly shop could have such incredible consequences? If we ever stopped to consider such things, I'm quite sure that nothing would ever get done at all.