Lost In The Supermarket

$25 is the most I would ever spend at a supermarket. Anything more than that seems excessive. Decadent even. Most of the time I struggle to get anywhere near $25. I walk the aisles, looking at items on the shelves, none of it seems much good. If I have to buy cleaning products or similar household items, then I might get up around $25. But most of the time I don't see how it is possible to spend that much money. There just aren't any products of a higher cost that I deem it necessary for me to purchase.

I was 21 and a half when I first started feeding myself. Up until that point I had never spent a single cent in a supermarket. I moved out of my parents place in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne into a noisy bedsit in London's inner-west. There was a Tesco about ten minutes walk away on the Cromwell Road. This was the supermarket where I made my first solo shopping trip (I had been to a supermarket before, but only with my Mum). This lone voyage was also the only time I have ever used a trolley. When I walked in through the automatic sliding doors I immediately went over to where the trolleys were kept and acquire one for my usage. I had seen my Mum do this during the times I had gone to the supermarket with her, and so I perceived it to be a vital part of the process. At the time I wasn't even aware that there was the option of a basket. As I had just moved to a new country and into a new place of residence it was obvious that there would be some essential items that I required in order to get myself set-up. I carefully perused each of the aisles and placed the products I deemed necessary of purchase into the trolley. After completing my circuit of the supermarket floor, to my surprise I had only filled approximately one fifteenth of the trolley's capacity. This didn't seem quite right, my Mum had always had a full trolley by the time she had reached the check-out. So I went back through each of the aisles again, thinking that I must have got distracted and missed a few things. As I reached the end of this second circuit I had not added a single item to my trolley.

I became slightly worried about this. I felt a little self-conscious approaching the check-outs with such a sparely populated trolley. I presumed that I might get in trouble for wasting the supermarket's resources. However, as I took my place in the queue I thought that if there was going to be any trouble I would hopefully be able to talk my way out of it by pleading ignorance. As it became my turn to be served, I decided that the best way to save myself from the scorn of the lady at the check-out was to make a joke out of the situation. So as I placed my few items onto the conveyor belt I smiled and said "I think someone's been taking things from my trolley". The lady looked at me seriously and said "Do you want to report this to the management?". "Oh no, sorry." I replied, a little startled by her response, "I was just making a joke because I don't have very many items in my trolley." She smiled and said "Oh, ok...maybe you should have just got a basket then?" "Oh, I didn't know there was baskets." I responded in surprise, "This is my first time at the supermarket by myself". She looked a little bemused and changed the subject by informing me how much my purchases had come to. The total cost was just under £10. As this was a shopping trip for the establishment of my new residence the figure of £10 as the most I would ever need to spend at a supermarket became lodged in my brain.

Upon returning to Melbourne I realised that the figured of £10 was not going to work with the different currency that is used in Australia. So I calculated the exchange rate and came up with the sum $25 as maximum amount I deemed it acceptable to spend at the supermarket here. Realistically I should have adjusted for the lower cost of living in Melbourne compared to London and made it $20, however as I rarely get anywhere near that sum anyway I feel that's a bit of a moot point.