I am on record as saying that, in the UK, home delivery grocery shopping is like playing Russian roulette with your dinner, this week was no exception. My order arrived late with, what seems to be the obligatory, insane substitutions. I rejected some of the substitutes but did keep a couple and those provided a further insight into the autonomous working of those that select the items. There were two bottles of single malt whiskey called up on my list, two different brands. The first one was not in stock and so was substituted, the same thing with the second. Now for the riddle, I had two substitutions yet I received one of my original selections how did I manage that?
The first item was substituted by what must have been the last remaining bottle of the second selection. So having substituted line one for line two there was no line two available. Since the grocery store has a rule that you never pay more for substitutions I actually came out £5 up on the transaction. It was just as well that there was some malt on the order though as I needed something to sedate my stomach after eating the bread that was delivered. I guess that I should have realised that something was wrong when my “large bloomer” folded in half as I picked it up! My inherent desire to make things work coupled with my hunger led me to toast the odd bread, again a clue should have been when it compressed to the height of a slice whilst trying to cut it. When I tasted the result it would appear that the ‘baker’ used a sweet dough and I am not entirely sure it was baked, I think that the crust may have been drawn on.
I am wondering if the grocery store is operated by a team of zombies, is that why they want us to shop from home. They need a few humans through the door to feed the staff so probably ten times that number, to hide the fact that not everyone comes out. But they can’t have us all shopping in store or they risk the zombie/shopper balance moving in favour of the zombies. Now your zombie is a low cost worker but they make a terrible consumer, we’ve all seen the movies haven’t we? Whilst they are good at queuing, what with the slow shuffling gait and generally low attention span, they are hardly a discerning shopper. Your average zombie couldn’t care less about brands, L’Oreal or MaxFactor it’s just getting liberally wiped over their face. You can’t up sell your sun ripened on the vine tomatoes to a flesh-eating member of the living dead; their not quality conscious it would be like putting real food in Iceland, pointless. I have to say that if they are trying to preserve us by getting us to shop from home, and therefore not coming into contact with their zombie hoards, they could make more of an effort!
I can confirm that I am still impressed by my mood light, although it hasn’t got a colour to match my mood, but my digital radio isn’t. I am afraid that we were sold a pup with digital radio, it just isn’t what they said. This was the new era, interference free and a greater selection of channels, why on earth would you want to stick with FM? The answer of course is simple, FM works! I get an FM signal when my digital stations sound as if they are being drowned, when the digital tuner says “no stations available” the FM is fine. I do like some of the digital stations, after all I am of an age when Absolute 90’s seems modern, but huge choice? I don’t think so. I have tried listening to “Data Test 1” through to 10 and they are silent, the religious channels are too much for me I like my fiction on the Kindle. Anything that starts with “Al-” is a definite no because it is probably running subliminal messages to turn me into a terrorist. Take it from ne digital radio is a con, you get the same result from taking an FM radio and throwing it into a bath.
In other news, following some debate with the gods of MS formatting, I have updated the other project. As you know I had set myself a 25K target before I put anything up and then promptly got so busy that I didn’t get the time. Interestingly 25K is well into a novella according to Wikipedia, having surpassed ‘short story’ and ‘novelette’ any of you ladies that want to take a peak please follow this link (http://wp.me/p42Hoq-b) and be sure to check back regularly. I would just like to say to Max, you told me to! and to Barbie, Pete is no more!