Bob walked into the supermarket, his eyes flicking around taking in the riot of products, signs and posters. Busy looking people flowed around him as he stood in the entrance, stunned. Cutting across the stream of shoppers, Bob selected a plastic basket and began. He stood in front of the fruit and vegetables. Buy one bag of oranges, get another bag free. Bob wondered what he would do with 20 or so oranges. He pondered where the oranges came from. They all looked the same size, what happened to the big or little oranges? Ten pence off celery. It still wouldn’t taste any better. This was taking too long, it was about time he bought something. Apples, yes. Green? Red? Greeny yellow? How many? Bob realised that he had been standing here too long and people were starting to give him odd looks. Grab some random apples and move on.

Bob wandered through the aisles, looking but not seeing the thousands of products stacked neatly each side of him. Two for one. Special offer. Only one per customer. Bob wondered if he would count as the same customer if he left the store and came back later. How much time would have to elapse before he could take advantage of the offer on that sack of pasta spirals again? It was somebody’s job to decide at what point he would again become eligible for the spiral offer. Which is more absurd? Putting the sign up, or attempting to buy a whole trolley full of special offer pasta spirals? He decided that he could always send a friend in if they questioned his allocation of bargains.

Bob paused by the spaghetti and realised that this whole situation made no sense. The manipulation to try and make him spend more, the terrible music and the miserable, ignorant herd banging into each other as they loaded their trolleys. The measured quantities of processed, shaped, flavoured, coloured, preserved and packaged products. The fatty, sugary, poisonous junk that has become normal. The celebrity promotions, the overbranding. The tracksuited family with a burgeoning trolley of crisps, beer and burgers; enough to feed them for a month but destined to be consumed within a week. The £2.99 salad. The myriad of “make life easy” products for those that just cannot be bothered to do anything for themselves. The urban car park full of ridiculously huge jeeps and dented people carriers with handprints and dog slobber on the inside of the windows. A minimum wage “operative” in a yellow shirt mooched past, dragging a cage full of beans behind him. The patronising and utterly fake “shops” within the supermarket that pretend to be the local shops that the supermarket have just put out of business.

Choosing a pint of milk from a staggering array of sizes and sorts, Bob hastened to the checkout. Would anyone notice if he snuck through the “ten items or less” checkout with eleven items? He paid for his milk and strangely shiny apples, and passing the little counter that sells profitable, cancerous death, left with a noticeable feeling of relief.