Day 8 - Saturday Shopping

I am average Joe. Shopping is not my sport of choice. Not any day of the week. It makes me grumpy quickly. I battle to understand males who can't wait to shop or those who morph into mall rats at the weekend. If I have to shop then I will (only after the threat of sexual abstinence) and then only from a list which must be provided. This is my excuse for in case I forget something or have failed to read my wife's mind. My lack of shopping experience makes me pretty crap at it (that's my excuse anyway). Pathetic I know and not very metrosexual.


Two days ago a momentous event happened here in Amanzimtoti. A new fruit n veg shop opened. And for three days now, including today, there are queues around the building to get in. Now, if shopping, generally, is not my game then you can be sure that fruit n veg shopping doesn't even feature on my top one million things to do. And I think my missus know this because this morning she decided that this is what we should be doing. The only up side was that both our kids were not coming with, so at least it would be relatively peaceful and whine free.


Now this is what happens just about every time a new business open here, people flock to it in the hundreds - any business - restaurants, bars, nightclubs, clothing shops, supermarkets...you name them and if you live here you'll know this, hell you might even have been one of them. All declare their undying love, all declare that this is the best thing ever to have happened in 'texas, all declare that this product or that product is much better than the old place they used to frequent and invariably all disappear once the specials are over and the passage of normality continues.


And today, under duress, I accompanied my missus to the newest....wait for it...Fruit n Veg City FOOD LOVERS MARKET.Now if you know the bright sparks behind this chain of stores you may want to - in fact please send this link to them -  suggest they find this blog and read whats coming next. It was way too busy to shop, the shopping trolleys - you know those metal things with magnetically polarized wheels that all have a mind of their own - were all sold out i.e. all 300 of them were being used by other utterly selfish punters. So we started by browsing and watched as people filled trolley after trolley with stupidly cheap stuff. Little did they know they would be spending the night in the shop - the queue stretched from the till points to infinity...and beyond!
And we browsed, some more. And realised - OK I admit to realising - that this was a damn good store and not something I had seen since living in the UK and traveling around Europe. Besides the usual stuff like the store butchery, the store bakery, the store takeaway - all this in a fruit n veg shop - the range of deli type stuff would far outstrip any of its local competitors, its in store restaurant type place had a simple but pretty good and very cheap menu and the food was good. I know because we ate some of it. And the coffee was good. OK the service was a bit scratchy but having done this a few times it was what I expected two and bit days into trade.
Who ever it was who had the vision to do this in 'texas deserves an award. Two in fact; one for vision, and the other for having the balls to do it. 
Unfortunately other smaller businesses will suffer but having been at the receiving end in the past the action required is that their offer needs to get better and they need to compete. Its a bit of virtuous cycle, the better the competition, the higher the bar becomes, the better the overall standard, the more people descend on an area... 


So my missus, not having completed her shopping mission, drugged my coffee and heaved my listless body into a silver shopping trolley, which she stole from a little, old, grey haired women in a wheelchair. Perspiring profusely she pushed me to the other end of the car park and I awoke just as we entered the monolithic super store Pick n Pay Hyper....
It was like going back in time...old fashioned "you're just a customer so don't disturb me" music filtered through the aisles. I noticed the fruit n veg section for the first time...and being normally ambivalent to these charms found myself wondering why they were 25% more expensive than where we had just come from...and why did it looked so boring? "Inspired by You". Please don't, you're offending me!


Positive today and yes, I will go back to my newest favourite (and this is the only favourite shop I think I have ever had) fruit n veg store. Like I said, if you know the owners please let them read this. They deserve a pat on the back.
Until tomorrow...