| Subject: When half the store disappears, it's scary out there in the cold |
Author:
Willie
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Date Posted: 05:32:34 10/18/03 Sat
Dunnes Store, The Sqaure, has been remodelling lately. First it was the Menswear department merging with the Womenswear (probably entirely naturally, depending on your world view). Then it was the shopping trolley bay being fenced off and the old Housewares department being exchanged for thin air one weekend.
I was standing by the closed roller shutters last week and one of my fellow regular shoppers beckoned frantically from the far end of the shop front. My shutter was slow in going up, so I trotted in his direction and sure enough the trollies had all been moved. He was tipping the wink to a fellow veteran of early-monring Saturday store-work that changes were afoot.
There are a few people I recognise each week doing the same old thing. "Man with clone" is one. He looks like a tennis ball on a soccer ball. His son looks like a table-tennis ball on a volleyball. They stump around the store and whisper conspiratorially over the cornflakes.
"Man in a Sports Coat" tends to visit the Post Office on Saturday for his pension and omehow always gets across to Dunnes before I do. Depending on the weather, he either shouts a cheery "Good Morning!" as I meet him in the Frozen Food section. This invariably frightens the hell out of me and I shout "Good MORNING!" back before I can control myself.
"Woman in jeans" has lately changed herself to "Woman conformed". She always arrived in tight blue jeans and denim jacket, pushed her trolley around with her youngest, a 14-year-old daughter in tow. I've run into the biscuits a few times looking at her. But now she blends into the kitchen towels wearing sober chinos and sweaters tailored for the more mature lady. Maybe a job is involved. I miss "Woman in jeans" though.
Today I skittered along the aisle wondering what is actually packed in a packed lunch, and wondering too how people with kids manage to afford all the colourful snackfoods that seem the obvious choices. Then, the horror... At the top of Aisle 3 the world came to an end! The soothing rows of shelf units ceased altogether, giving way to a barren expanse of fake-wood floor. I felt like I could feel a draft; that walking out here was somehow unnatural. Maybe someone with a net would pounce from the rafters or the floor open up and swallow my trolly, two-Euro security coin and all.
I gingerly steered around the end of the aisle, looking steadfastly at the impulse buys on the ends (bought a bottle of Tippex as it happened... impulse buys really work.) I was fascinated to see that everyone else was going slower than normal about the store, tiptoeing gently on the tiles, trying to avoid the realisation that yes, there were NO GOODS for a period of twenty feet at the far end of each aisle.
There was no avoiding it. The check outs were now in their new position and until the new units were brought in everyone would have to brave the empty space. I pulled my collar up as I stood in the queue. Was that a shiver I felt? Menthol gum will cure anything. I grabbed a pack from the sweety rack and tried not to look behind me at the empty space. Roll on next week and God Bless the shopfitters. They're saving us from mental distress.
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