God Shops at Tesco

Enough was enough. I needed an extension cord, nail polish remover, a cheap teapot, and other various accoutrements, and I wasn’t in the mood to wait any longer. It wasn’t like I didn’t have experience with city supermarkets, they suck, tell me something I don’t know.

Treasure Island, the grocery store nearest my apartment in Chicago, has every food item you could ever want. They call it “the most European grocery store in America,” which may very well be true, but European grocery stores are nothing like Treasure Island. Their grocery stores look like our grocery stores, but with less choices, because WHO NEEDS all those choices?

In America (especially in the suburbs) we get a lot of choices. Salad dressing for example, we can choose between French or Thousand Island or Italian or Creamy Italian, Ranch, Southwestern Ranch, Balsalmic Vinaigrette, Raspberry Vinaigrette, the list goes on… As if that weren’t enough choices we can also decide if we want the super premium kind, the premium kind, the off-brand premium, the organic kind, the regular kind, and the generic kind. This is the same for toilet paper (single roll? 4? 6? 8? 12? 24?), bread (whole grain, seven grain, whole wheat, white wheat, white, rye, marble rye, WeightWatchers, Wonder, sesame, flax seed,…)

In the City Centre of Glasgow I walk in to the grocery story (Sainsbury’s, Aldi, The Co-Operative) and they are quite small, so I was thinking to myself, okay, people in the UK have less choices in their grocery stores (which may still be true, this isn’t professional research or anything). They had most things I needed, but we get two choices, on-brand or generic.

City grocery stores just weren’t cutting it for me anymore. I was dying for a Target, Wal-Mart, or (dare I say it) Kmart. I needed some cheapie household items that one can only procure for a reasonable price from a store that does all of their business with sweatshops by exploiting man, woman, and child. I needed to go to Tesco.

I had heard many a tale about the big Tesco in Springburn, a town that touches the northernmost edge of Glasgow, about a mile away from campus. I had heard that people who go to Tesco come back converted; never again will they do their weekly shop at Sainsbury or Aldi. So after class I set off to find this mythical place. I walked and walked, realized I was lost, asked a Glaswegian for directions, walked some more, realized I was lost again, asked a person who spoke the Queen’s English for directions, walked some more, and suddenly I found myself in a concrete jungle, the St. Rollex Business and Retail Park (I have no idea why they call it St. Rollex, as it doesn’t appear there ever was a holy Rollex).

I continued on the concrete path, lined with street lights, abandoned grocery carts all about, and I saw what I thought to be a mirage, a store the size of two Bradley Super Wal-Marts stacked on top of each other, the Tesco Extra.

The automatic doors swept open in front of me, dare I enter? As I walked in from the glaring Glasgow sun I stepped into a blinding light and heard a resounding Alleluia Chorus. (Well not really, but that would’ve been neat). Seriously, I’ve never been anywhere so huge. It’s got sections for clothing, electronics (including retailing and renting DVDs, CDs, music downloads, Internet services, and software), financial services, a cell phone plan retailer, health & beauty, a car insurance agency, a dentist, and an optometrist, a butcher, a baker, a deli, a liquor store, dry goods, frozen goods, produce, homewares, furniture, office supplies, a bookstore, auto supplies, a petrol station, and a café. They call it, quite rightly, a hypermarket. There goes my theory on fewer choices in the UK/Europe.

So I walked up and down every aisle smiling like a crazed Stepford Wife, clutching my £3 teapot and my £4 extension cord, and proceeded to spend £28 more on crap that I didn’t need for the sheer novelty of being inside such a rare and frightening beacon of the wonders of capitalism.

Then as if they hadn’t already won my vote for the most opulent and wonderful place on earth, they one-upped themselves as I was strolling through the World Foods aisle and saw a store clerk unloading crates and crates of Koala Yummies. I audibly yelped, and the clerk looked at me like I was nuts (as if this doesn’t happen every day…) but I don’t even care because sitting here at my desk munching away at my Koala Yummies I can tell you…

Reason to Leave it: Misunderstanding directions no matter how carefully I listen.
Reason to Love it: Koala Yummies and super-delicious on-sale 100% Organically Raised Scottish Beef Burgers from Tesco

Yours,
J