A very good evening from the Lifestyle Support Guru! Tonight, I am going to ask you a few questions that will help you work out your place in society. Clearly, as the LSG, I know exactly where I stand – my place in the very top tier of society is assured as I rub shoulders with kings and queens, princes and princesses, film stars; however, I am equally at home with those of a more rough-hewn nature – teachers, pub landlords, coach drivers, those people who are the salt of the earth!
The questions are based on my own experiences, as always, since I would never ask you to judge yourselves unless I had judged myself first – of course, I came out as a model citizen. The rest of you may find it a little more difficult to reach such a pinnacle, but you must always strive, even if you are unlikely to match me – that is something that only a very, very, very small number (in fact, probably none) will ever achieve.
Anyway, on with the quiz:
1. You are in a supermarket (let’s say Morrison’s; other supermarkets are available, but they had the best beer offer that day) with your sibling, and have stocked up on basics – beer, wine and chocolate – and you head for the nearest (and shortest) queue and unload your trolley. An old couple joins the queue immediately behind you and you can see that the female half of the couple is looking at you and your sibling in a rather angry manner, tutting and shaking her head (the male half is looking increasingly embarrassed). (Sibling hasn’t noticed any of this – he is too busy looking lovingly at his chocolate, wondering if he can open the (very large) packet of Maltesers before you’ve got through the checkout.) You wonder what is making this old woman so cross – maybe she thinks you haven’t got a proper, balanced diet in your trolley. Silly old woman! You then realise that you have accidentally joined the ‘Ten Items, Express Checkout’ queue, which is why this old bag is so incensed – you have TWELVE items in your trolley! Do you:
a) Apologise profusely to the hag and start loading the items back into your trolley so that you can go to another queue?
b) Apologise profusely to the ancient hag but stay where you are because you’re next at the checkout and reloading your trolley would take more time than going through the checkout?
c) Apologise to the checkout assistant and say you’ll move to another queue?
The obvious answer is c) because the checkout assistant has noticed this seriously deranged female monster becoming more and more angry over something incredibly petty. She says – loudly and often and with a smile – that, since there are two of you, you are allowed TWENTY items on her till and, even if you weren’t allowed that many, TWELVE items is hardly a hanging crime (well, not in the UK… yet).
2. You are on the committee of a local group that is trying to raise funds for an event in the summer (Fashion Show, May 4th; Picnic on the Green, July 8th) and you have been asked (or maybe you volunteered – my memory blurs) to find out which supermarket does the best offer on boxes of wine for the Fashion Show (did I mention it’s on May 4th?). Do you:
a) Go straight to a price comparison website for supermarkets?
b) Go straight to the Tesco website?
c) Go straight to the Waitrose website?
If you chose a) or b), then you are a reasonably balanced individual (Tesco seems to have reined in its ambitions to rule the world for now, so I am happy to look at their website, even if I can’t quite bring myself to go into the actual store). However, if you chose c), you need to reassess your understanding of ‘society’ – ‘Waitrose’ and ‘box of wine’ do NOT go together. It may be that you need to see a counsellor to understand that we are NOT ‘all in this together’, or at least not as far as Waitrose is concerned when its ‘essentials’ range includes avocado, sirloin steak and tortilla wraps. Looking for a wine box in Waitrose is like looking for a photo of a fully-clothed Kim Kardashian – it just isn’t going to happen!
Two questions are enough to cope with for now – challenges should be realistic and present goals that can be reached and I believe that these two offer enough to consider for the moment. Coming soon – a moral dilemma involving Wagamama. Sleep well, Faithful Followers!