Wednesday, July 1, 2009

This life and then the next

Circumstances and geography have found me shopping in ALDI (do you need to capitalise it, like LIDL, or is it just Aldi?) quite a lot recently. I'm generally accompanied by the lady, who knows exactly what is what in there and guides me through the process ever so smoothly, subtly steering me clear of the 29 cent custard creams in the process.

But yesterday found me there alone, getting stuff for dinner. This task accomplished, I began looking for the pink lemonade that we got there the other week. Having no success in this quest, I was about to go up to a manager type who was busying himself in the booze section to ask where I might find this most satisfying of liquids. But then I stopped short, remembering that the reason these places are about 20 times cheaper than Tesco or Supervalu is because, like Ryanair, they save money by not doing customer service. I had this vision of the manager suddenly pulling out a loudhailer and shouting

"ATTENTION CUSTOMERS, PARTY TIME IS OVER! THOSE PORK CHOPS FOR 1.99 ARE NOW GOING TO COST YOU 5.87 AND WE WON'T BE DOING THOSE 2GB MEMORY STICKS FOR 12 CENTS ANY MORE. ANDREW COULDN'T FIND HIS WAY AROUND AND NOW HE'S FUCKED IT UP FOR EVERYONE."

So, I leave, sans delicious lemonade, but vowing to return on Thursday with a GPS to help me find the memory foam pillows for 12.99.

I relay my fears to the lady later on.

"Nah," she laughs, "they're really nice in there."

Seriously, then, what's the catch?

12 comment(s):

Rosie said...

i read that as "yesterday found me there alone, getting stiff for dinner" and thought yeah, that sounds about right...

Sarah Gostrangely said...

LOL Andrew! Such a lovely image of you cringing/wetting yourself on the Aldi floor...targetted by bullish store managers.

As an aside, Pink lemonade, you say?

Meadow said...

For some reason I am now thinking of the time my friend and I wrote 'wee wee' on the blackboard when the teacher stepped out. We were five and too scared to admit it was us until she threatened to give the whole class lines.

I want pink lemonade so badly now. I still haven't learned to shop in there properly. It's hard work.

B said...

The catch is that they are a lot more efficient, none of this fronting shite or carrying butchers fridge room up staircases.

In Germany they're meant to be really ruthless bastards though.


Meadow: they write worse things than that these days, just so you know.

Meadow said...

I do, B, I do. Sigh...

morgor said...

yeah, i was wondering that too, what's the catch.

They have organic vegetables from Ireland for cheap, they have super cheap other veg. their water is irish and cheap too. their beer is nice and cheap and german.

Maybe they steal money from your wallet while you're walking around there?

Anonymous said...

They are really nice there. I think the lower prices are on account of the not-well-known-brands and warehouse-like-style-of-the-place. Neither of those are big problems in my book. PS hi, you told me to let you know where I was hiding on the internet now ages ago when I bumped into you at a party at which you were wearing a pink hat...I've finally remembered to tell you!

Andrew said...

Rosie - Jesus, not in front of the nice people...

Sarah - Yes, pink lemonade. Oddly enough, about an hour after finishing writing this post we had dinner guests over. By happy coincidence they brought three bottles of pink lemonade with them. 'Twas glorious.

Meadow - Glad it's not just me. Mind you, I find any supermarket hard work. If they could just arrange them so that everything was laid out in the order in which I'd eat it that would really help. Like, if there was soup at the front and chocolate mousse at the back, just before you pay.

B - I know they don't bother with nearly as much presentation bollocks, but to me that still doessn't explain such a massive difference between the prices.

Morgor - I reckon so, yeah. But they probably only steal from the elderly, so it's fine.

gettingoverdisney - Ah, 'tis yourself! Glad to be shunted in your direction, finally.
But a little less talk about my pink hat in front of the nice people.

ragdoll cat breeders said...

nice article...:)

Andrew said...

Thank you, Ragdoll Cat Breeders.

You've such a charismatic name that I thought we might very well become firm friends. And then, alas, I see that you are just a spamming fuckwit.

Jo said...

A lot of stuff tastes weird. That's the catch for me.

She Likes It Loud said...

Why didn't you just text your lady and ask her where it was?