mushroom debacle

smithdown · January 7, 2012

and so I'm in the tesco's right getting the brekky in - yer loaf, teabo's, few eggs and I sees there's a big inviting tray of chestnut mushrooms right there on the way in and I goes and gets some don't I, abar a dozen I have in one of these handy little plassy bags that they leave knocking round and when i goes the till all is going swimmingly, the sun is having a go at shining outside and there's a general air of wellbeing abounding, when the girl stops beeping and holds up the mushrooms and says 'we can't sell you these'.

What?

- we can't sell you these

- what?

- we can't sell you these

- what?

this goes on a while longer til she explains that they don't sell these mushrooms, I point out that they do, in my opinion, but she rejects this and repeats again what she knows, that they don't sell them. I don't offer up much more, rather letting the mushrooms she is holding in her hand do the talking on my behalf and quite a case they make, to my eyes anyway, if not hers. After a further stand off she elects to go and have a look for herself but not before she informs me of the fact that 'we only sell these in packs, love'. She looks at me with no small amount of pity. I let her go, confident in my argument that while it might not have been thought out very deeply, was heavily weighted with all available evidence and I reckon myself to be bang on the money. To be fair, was my thinking, if they only sell them in packs then a pack is what i would on balance be more likely to have offered up as a proposed purchase when I'd happened upon her somewhat f*cked up purview.

She returns, looking really rather darkened of hue around the brow area and consults one of her colleagues, and all is quieter than normal, and then she returns.

'did you see them?', I ask, but not in any mocking way or even with any valedictory flourish but acknowledging that it's a funny old world and so on, and seeing as I was soon home to get a top feed then all in all, all was well.

She did see them, she says, she says they usually only sell them in packs, which is fair enough, she'd know more than me about that side of the story and besides, I joke that 'you thought I'd ripped open a packet didn't you? thought i was messing about, like? just wanted half, like? haha!' but she is stony-faced and not sunny or breakfasty at all and then she tells me, while holding up the chestnut mushrooms that 'we can't sell you these'.

And so she doesn't.

Didn't get them.

No chestnut mushrooms for me. I swear blind I nearly had them but no. Not possible.

No mushrooms.

Made me think of this as I walked home:

The car is on fire, and there's no driver at the wheel
And the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides
And a dark wind blows

The government is corrupt
And we're on so many drugs
With the radio on and the curtains drawn

We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine
And the machine is bleeding to death

The sun has fallen down
And the billboards are all leering
And the flags are all dead at the top of their poles

It went like this:

The buildings tumbled in on themselves
Mothers clutching babies
Picked through the rubble
And pulled out their hair

The skyline was beautiful on fire
All twisted metal stretching upwards
Everything washed in a thin orange haze

I said, "Kiss me, you're beautiful -
These are truly the last days"

You grabbed my hand
And we fell into it
Like a daydream
Or a fever

We woke up one morning and fell a little further down
For sure it's the valley of death

I open up my wallet
And it's full of blood

Has anyone been denied their breakfast by a global corporation or is it just me?

Swan Red · January 7, 2012

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