Saturday 5 December 2009

Survival of the fattest

We’ve all seen those awesome (and some) Sir David Attenborough nature programmes in which a pack of ruthless wolves moves in on their prey or a herd of buffalo stampedes towards a watering hole or a voracity of vultures (sounds like a good collective noun to me!) circles their next square meal. But have you ever wondered about the human equivalent? Well, I’ve just discovered it.
It’s called the Christmas shop at Asda.
I nipped in for what I thought would be a straightforward shop and picked up a basket at the entrance. Little did I realise how many ‘basket cases’ were already ahead of me, all wielding trolleys. But just in case you have any preconceived ideas, an Asda trolley is no ordinary trolley.
An Asda trolley is ergonomically designed for its driver to slouch forward onto the handle in order to steer it around the retail jungle in his own inimitable monocoque fashion. When I say ‘steer’, to the driver that word is more likely to conjure up an image of the back end of some humongous beast that he somehow has to prise from the freezer and hump in to his trolley among the booze, nuts, crisps and other delicacies.

In essence, an Asda trolley is the supreme hunter-gatherer invention. It’s a veritable food bearing Zimmer.

Unlike the wild, however, (admittedly, Asda is not too unlike the wild) we are not talking here about the survival of the fittest.
How do I know that?
Well having scanned and paid for my items, an electronic voice shouts out:
"Thank you for using the fat lane!"
Or was it the fast lane?
At Asda, you can never be too sure.

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