Sucked In

I certainly was. The shopping expedition started off so well. I had previously settled on a recipe for tonight's dinner and proceeded to wander around the supermarket, depositing the required ingredients in the many crevices of my voluminous duffel coat. I then slipped out the fire exit, only to be impaled by a forklift truck driven by an enraged senior citizen. No - that was a lie. I was run over by Martin Bryant driving his Volvo. More lies, and now the truth. I bought all the crap on my list, and was ready to head home in Martin Bryant's Volvo. But I had to walk past the butcher shop to get to the carpark. Before I embark upon this tale of folly, let me inform you all of the following in no uncertain terms; I'm a reasonably sensible, hard-headed shopper (!!) but at the time I was somewhat fuzzy from a rather large night prior. It was quite late in the day, and the staff at the butcher shop had taken all the meat trays out of their display cabinets, and were wiping down the stainless steel backing plates. Not much opportunity for impulse buying, you might say. Ah, but the warmer thing was still on, and still held quite a large number of barbecued chickens.

This, regrettably, caught my eye. I had slept most of the morning and was skulking around indoors for most of the afternoon, thus I hadn't eaten all day. I'm not as big a fan of the barbecued chicken as I once was, but you know how it is when you're hungry. Yes, I know, never go shopping when you're hungry. Thanks for the advice, asshole. So I'm looking at all those chickens and looking at this butcher shop that's obviously preparing to close, and I'm thinking I reckon those chickens are going to be discounted soon. And I wish to take advantage. I double back and start staring intently into the warmer at the chickens, trying to effect a look of deep indecision in the hope that one of the staff will call out "sixteen chickens for ninety-nine cents!" to push me over the line. Then I can go home, eat greasy chicken until I give myself a coronary - all for less than a buck.

But no butcher's bellow announced happy hour at the rotisserie. I'm thinking come on come on whaddaya gunna do with 'em anyway? I bet they taste like shit and you guys know what goes into that seasoning. You don't want 'em. Sell one to me cheap! Tightarses. I'm also putting maximum effort into my outward display of concentrated deliberation - my brow still aches. Aha! Success! One of the guys drifts over and is all like "sorry mate, didn't see you waiting there" and I'm all like "whatever". No, I smiled and nodded. Then, disaster! He laughs at my rather amusing Chuck Norris t-shirt, which admittedly does attract a lot of comments. This isn't good - a rapport is forming. I'm going to feel shitty about hitting this guy up for a discount. And he's holding out on me. Come on, mate, don't sell me this chicken; sell me this chicken! I stall for time, asking which chickens are the large size ($7) and which ones are family ($8). As soon as I said it, I knew I'd made a terrible mistake. I indicated that I wanted a chicken, but was undecided about the size. Bad impression! I don't want a chicken unless they pay me to take it away! And the rapport with the butcher guy still hasn't dissipated, despite my inane line of questioning. Can't be seen to be one of those whinging gits desperately scrambling for discounts (although clearly I am) in front of my fellow t-shirt appreciator. And I've acted all keen; I'll look like a total jerk if I walk away now. Can't look like a jerk - I'm never a jerk.

The simple fact is that I've come this far; I must buy. So which one do I get? Now I don't even want the chicken, but the family size is only one dollar more than the large size, and I bet the family chook is more than 14% larger than its runty, scabby little large brother. So really, it's like I'm saving money by paying $8 instead of $7. I notice that the chicken looks pretty dry - funny that, it's the end of the day and the bloody bird's probably been under those lights since 6am. I say to the guy "have they been in the warmer long?", knowing full well they have. He says "not that long." PERFECT ESCAPE CLAUSE...window of opportunity fading...and he's stuck a fork up its jacksee, it's in the bag and it's too late for me. Fuck, I better pay and leave before I buy another fucking chicken under some other irrational pretext.

So, let's see how I did. I considered buying a product I didn't really want, because the prospect of a discount was irresistible. I subsequently failed to negotiate a discount on the product because I didn't want to look like a tightarse in front of a guy who I'll never see again because he complimented the t-shirt I was wearing. I decided to buy the product because I was concerned about appearing scatterbrained; hang the fact that my scatterbrainedness had manoeuvred me into this predicament. Not only that, the product was visibly inferior so I had a perfectly valid reason to walk away - head held high in the court of public opinion - instead, I paid more to receive a larger size of dry and scabby old chook that I didn't really want in the first place.

Oh well, we'll just pretend that never happened. And what's $8? A pint of my current favourite draught beer at an expensive pub. $8 is nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all.

I'm going to have bad dreams tonight.

UPDATE: Shit! I got so excited writing out this post that I forgot I'd left my soup (click the link at the top, where the secret of what I had for dinner will be revealed) on the stove, and it's burnt to buggery! Great, now I'll have to take the chicken for tomorrow's lunch. Lucky I bought it, after all.