Woolies Dean Street really is the gift that keeps on giving. And, now that they’ve revamped they’re really killing it from the perspective of attracting a new class of wanky shoppers. I’m a wanky shopper. I love Woolworths and I have been known to buy quinoa and haloumi from there. Bullshit, I do all my shopping there. Literally all of it. I use Woolies toilet paper.

Anyway I was there a few weeks back because I was making dinner for my folks. It was a real Southern Suburbs shit festival from a weather perspective, so the onslaught of black puffer jackets was at fever pitch. Black Puffer Adders with their piercing eyes and Cath Kidson carrier bags were out with a real sense of damp and furious purpose. They wanted more than the regulation midweek chicken schnitzel. They were after the butternut soup. Luckily I didn’t have to break a nail fighting for the last pouches of bland soup (yes Woolies, your butternut soup sucks) because I was after fish.

Being midweek the fresh fish selection was thin on the ground. I guess it’s a metaphor for the state of our oceans, but I don’t want to linger on that clusterfuck because I’m on a helluva Game of Thrones come down as it is. Back to the fish. I procured frozen hake because “cheap”, a few tins of tuna because I’m really into mercury these days, and the last package of fresh smoked trout fillet that was on special, which is why I bought it. I felt guilty for being so miserly towards my mum and stepdad, so grudgingly went in search for some prawns. I gazed at the prawns. I weighed up my options. Maybe the smoked trout could go, and I could get away with just hake, tuna and prawns? Decisions.

Just as I was about to return the very last smoked salmon trout from whence it came, in marches, let’s call her Ruth, and her delightful three maybe four year old (I can’t tell I literally have no understanding of children), who, for the purposes of this narrative is Gwendolyn. Ruth does a precursory scan of the fresh fish and her nose wrinkles, she shifts from one Birkenstock to the next. ‘Where’s the salmon trout? WHERE IS the salmon trout!’ I wait to see how this plays out, reaffirming my newly emerged cavalier “fuck the budget” we’re having salmon trout AND prawns, in what is now a luxury midweek middle finger to Ruth fish pie.

Ruth is not convinced by the absence of product above the barcoded ‘salmon trout’ label. She is white, and therefore smoked trout appears if you will it to appear. No luck. ‘Gwendolyn, there’s none of the smoked trout fillets that you like!’ Gwendolyn is resolute. Passive. Ruth, panicked by Gwendolyn’s nonchalance goes head first into the refrigerator scrambling for options… she retrieves fishcakes, oak-smoked Norwegian salmon ribbons, chili flavoured poached salmon fillets, and fresh hake. In a frenzy she reads each label to Gwendolyn asking her ‘will you eat this my darling?’ Gwendolyn manages a withering ‘yes’ when the chili salmon is thrust in front of her.

Ruth abandons all of the dead fish. ‘This won’t do. You must have the smoked trout.’

What happens next won’t surprise you…

‘I must find the manager…’

At this point I believe it prudent to interject and say, ‘I believe I have the last of the smoked trout… I got the last one…’ I want to crouch down on my haunches and marvel at my preciouses but I wasn’t confident that I wouldn’t get a Birkenstock to the forehead. Ruth didn’t hear me of course, because she was too busy monologuing with herself. ‘Manager, yes he will know… maybe…’ Just then one of the uber-over friendly shelf packers appears. He is too nose deep in those new fangled pretzel crackers to show any interest in Ruth’s dazzling performance of ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’. Ruth says loudly, to darling Gwendolyn, ‘I shall ask him!’ Pause. ‘Actually no, he won’t know what lightly smoked rainbow trout fillets are.’

Absolutely Ruth, the guy whose job it is to stock this aisle won’t know what you’re talking about because only managers (white), know what you’re after. Smoked trout is, after all for white people and their spawn.

At this point I wave the package of smoked trout in front of Ruth and say, ‘So I got the last one,  and I’m going to make fish pie.’

I don’t know what her face did. I’d like to think her head exploded. When I look back on this perfunctory Wednesday afternoon I am certain I heard sobbing.

And FYI, Fucking best fish pie I’ve ever made… if you’d like to follow my  recipe it calls for lightly smoked rainbow trout fillet (the very last one in the store).   

While Monkey was spreading his smoked snoek mousse on his rye bread with a plastic teaspoon, I was sipping away on my crisp wine. Crisp wine was crisp because of my fancy wine wand which looks disturbingly like a sex toy. A sex toy for wine as it were. The wine sex toy was a hit with passers-by who marveled at the fact that not only does the wand chill the wine BUT it has a stopper and pouring spout too…

31. White people love Yuppiechef.

Anyway after listening to Dave bang on about the magical properties of apple cider vinegar it was the turn of Gareth and Sarah to step up to the podium and receive an emergency phonecall from their au pair. It turns out young Arya had fallen off the jungle gym and had a suspected broken arm. Arya was obviously an ironic name.

Sarah was white madam cross because ‘how could they be so selfish…?’ ‘Why did kids have to play the fool?’ ‘Why couldn’t they just behave like they were told to?’ I was with Sarah… kids are real assholes.

Didn’t they know it was Cat Stevens?

Gareth, not being the recalcitrant type, morphed into super new age dad and began sweating and pacing… He’s obviously a Grey’s Anatomy dad cos he was using words like ‘STAT’ and ‘push 2 cc’s of epi’… OK that’s an exaggeration he just asked if Arya could move her arm.

Silence…

It was time to bring out the big guns and talk to the son… the au pair was clearly an idiot…

‘Tristan! Fetch the iPad STAT and get onto Facetime… you’re going to have to show me Arya’s arm…!’

I’m getting hella excited now thinking Grey’s Anatomy Gareth is going to talk Tristan through surgery using nothing but an iPad and and a ballpoint pen. Gareth takes a sip of his Merlot and mops his brow. Sarah is telling Beverley that she’s not letting her kids spoil this for her… this is the first time she’s been out the house for months. Gareth is now Facetiming Tristan and I’ve refilled my glass excited about Tristan going rogue on his first surgery. No such luck Arya can move her arm but she’s screaming like a real little asshole. ‘I think it’s just sprained’ says Gareth…

A few minutes later…
Gareth: ‘I’m going to have to go home and sort this out…’
Sarah: ‘Can’t we just wait until after the concert…?’
Gareth: ‘No Sarah what if it’s serious?’
Sarah: ‘I don’t think it’s serious… I mean she’s always hysterical… she cries over anything…’

Gareth abandons his post to make the long journey back to middle Constantia to sort out young Arya, and Sarah goes back to complaining about how kids can be a real buzzkill.

‘I do hope he makes it back in time for the concert’

(Originally posted on Facebook 16 November 2017)