CHOOSE-YOUR-OWN-ADVENTURE DEPRESSING REAL LIFE EDITION: GROCERY SHOPPING
Welcome to another exciting CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE DEPRESSING REAL LIFE EDITION. Whereas last time involved just getting through the day, this week we have a special challenge: lack of food in the house has necessitated the purchasing of groceries!
Will you survive, or wind up being murdered inside a Blockbuster Video? Only one way to find out!
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1. You find yourself gradually and pleasantly waking up – the sun is shining through the gap in the curtains and you can feel the warmth on your skin. Everything seems so cozy and pleasant that for a blissful 13 seconds you are unaware that you are you.
Then you wake up to find that your husband has murdered a baby bird and left it on your pillow.
But never mind! Today is grocery shopping day – the one day of the week when you can be surrounded by people. You can pretend you’re at a shopping-cart-themed fancy dress party! Or an elegant basket soirée! You flick the bird carcass into one of your husband’s slippers and get up to face the day. Nothing can ruin this excitement!
But what to do first?
a) Kick on those heels and head straight into town! No time to lose! (go to part 3)
b) You have to eat something first. Or at least have cold coffee and a smoke (go to part 4)
c) Why are you fooling yourself again? This day is going to be just like any other – the people in the supermarket aren’t your friends, you lost all your friends after you did that blackface karaoke act and got into the newspapers. Face it, there’s no point even leaving bed any more (go to part 5)
2. Something with this Blockbuster Video is… wrong. Where are all the videotapes? And stoned workers? The shelves are bare, aside from a lone copy of Adam Sandler’s shitflick The Wedding Singer. You walk up to the shelf and pick it up.
An alarm sounds, and before you have chance to run you are surrounded by aggressive street punks on motorbikes. They bind you in chains and bring you to the anarchist king, who instantly declares you guilty of being from the Outside and passes the lenient verdict of death by cannibalism.
“Look!” you scream, “A poorly-written opinion piece on how income tax is the highest form of oppression!”
The salivating Bakuninists are distracted just long enough for you to make your escape. (go to part 9)
3. You put on your sexiest high heels and head straight out the door. You don’t even care that you’re still in your filthy yellow underwear! Hello postman! Hello cats! Hello -
You stumble and impale your skull on one of the decorative tribal spears your neighbour has placed about his garden, the last thought going through your head being how you detest both postal workers and cats.
And life.
GO BACK TO START
4. There’s still some coffee in the pot! Perhaps your husband does love you after all! Perhaps your marriage can be saved! You take a big slurp straight from the pot, thinking of your thoughtful -
It’s paint thinner and brown food colouring (again). How does he manage to trick you every single week?
You spend three hours dry heaving, trying to chase the terrifying hallucinations from your vision. At last it’s time to go shopping! (go to part 7)
5. You lie in bed wishing the hours away, the filthy, crusted sheets biting into your skin like velcro. But wait, what’s that? It’s the children! Your children have returned!
Nope, it’s just your husband home for his lunch break, waving the photos of your fostered children in front of your face in an attempt to make you end it all. But you’ll show him! No more lying around in bed waiting for the bedsores to get infected! (go to part 7)
6. The desperate TGI Friday’s workers claw at you the second you come in the doorway, a feral glaze clouding their eyes.
“Outsider,” they cry, marvelling at your non-ridiculous clothes and lack of fried food stench. You grow increasingly disconcerted as they claw at you, rubbing their hands and then tongues over your arms.
“So clean,” one cries, “So fresh.”
You try to run for the door but they are already on top of you, pawing at your skin and hair with their greasy hands. You reach out your arm, making one last desperate grab for daylight, but you are quickly overwhelmed.
Pieces of your skin are added to their uniforms.
GO BACK TO START.
7. You arrive at the giant out-of-town retail park, being careful to avoid the used syringes and shards of glass hurled by mischievous children. The sky is grey with smoke from a nearby burning car. You wander through the car park with your attack alarm in hand, marvelling at the number of dead seagulls on the ground. You feel like you’re shopping in the boutiques of Milan! Surely there’s some time for browsing?
a) Sure! Why not head to Blockbuster Video? It’s been a while since you looked at some good DVD cases! (go to part 2)
b) Absolutely! The smell from that TGI Friday’s is heavenly! (go to part 6)
c) No – you don’t need any distractions. Going to the supermarket is excitement enough for one day, thank you very much! (go to part 9)
8. Dang and blast! You’ve finally contracted scurvy! You’d better find some lemons, and fast!
a) To the fruit aisle! (go to part 14)
b) To the cleaning product aisle! (go to part 16)
9. Ahhh, the supermarket. Angry red-faced mothers screaming at irritable children, dejected office workers buying limp horsemeat sandwiches, and creepy old men loitering by the magazine racks. This truly is your spiritual home.
But don’t let the glamour overwhelm you! What to buy? What to buy?
a) A magazine! I’ve got to learn all the celebrity goss! (go to part 12)
b) Potatoes! Good old, salt-of-the-earth potatoes (go to part 13)
c) Buy? With money? What nonsense! All I have in my pockets are some buttons and used gum I found at the bus stop (go to part 11)
10. You reach the checkout with your single potato. The bored woman operating the till gives you a surly glance before spitting her gum at you. It gets tangled in your hair.
But never mind! You did it! You’ve done your grocery shopping for the week. But how will you celebrate?
a) With a slap-up meal from TGI Friday’s, of course! (go to part 6).
b) The shopping was exciting enough, thank you very much (go to part 17).
11. Sensing your lack of financial solvency, the security guard follows you around the supermarket. Pick up a lovely dead fish, he’s there. Rifle through cauliflowers, he’s there. Urinate in the bakery department, he’s – oh shit, he’s chasing you. Run!
You desperately try to pull your pants up as you waddle away, trailing urine. It’s not your fault the toilets are so hard to find! You upturn a box of apples, causing the security guard to trip and shatter his skull on the corner of a chest freezer, his eyes staring lifelessly up at you as crimson blood slowly fills the aisle.
Well, that’s that problem solved! You rifle through his pockets, discovering that upon death he has voided his bowels. And he had the cheek to chase you for having a little wee by the baguettes! Oh well, you find 57 cents in change. Time to buy something!
a) All that excitement has got my brain buzzing! I could really do with a lovely magazine to read! (go to part 12)
b) I really burned some fat with that running! Some lovely chips would do nicely (go to part 13)
12. You sidle up to the magazines. There are so many choices your head begins to spin! There are a dozen magazines dedicated to tractors alone! And 37 to carp fishing!
“Need a hand?” a man who smells like cheap whiskey asks. “I know all the magazines, I do.”
You’re about to reject his kind offer when you notice he has the bluest eyes you’ve ever seen.
“Fancy a nip?” he asks, holding a hip flask toward you. “I made it myself from the ex-wife’s nail varnish and Worcester sauce.”
His smile is just dreamy! And you can’t help but notice he said ‘ex’ wife! You take a sip of his seductive ambrosia, and before you know it your lips are locked to his, the thin film of sick around his mouth binding you together. You’re instantly married beneath the bridal magazines and decide to start a family by the newspapers. With all this reading material your children will grow up to be geniuses! Or porn stars, depending on which shelves they read.
Either way you found true love!
THE END
13. Nothing like good old spuds! You decide to try a small sample, taking a bite from one of the potatoes. But urgh! What’s that inside?!
a) One of your own teeth (go to part 8)
b) A colony of spiders (go to part 15)
c) More potato (go to part 10)
14. The fruit aisle has been replaced by an all-you-can-drink chocolate sundae fountain. You dive in, swallowing as much liquidised chocolate sundae as you can in the vain hope that there might be fruit pieces bobbing about inside. There aren’t.
Three weeks later a young, previously-untraumatised family find your bloated corpse blocking the fountain’s outflow pump. Your body is mistaken for that of a particularly large and unnatractive dog, and the lack of any government regulation whatsoever means that the supermarket quickly process you into hamburgers.
Which is more than you ever would have achieved had you lived.
You’re a success!
THE END
15. You run about the supermarket in a frightened daze, spiders hatching from eggs between your teeth and spilling out of your mouth. You are stared at by your fellow patrons in utter dismay. Eventually you manage to mash enough of the spiders between your teeth to breathe properly.
Better try another potato (go to part 13).
16. You swallow everything you can find in the cleaning products section – lemon furniture polish, dishwashing liquids, floor soap – until you’re foaming at the mouth like some sort of rabid Frenchman. But hurrah! There must have been the tiniest amount of lemon in there somewhere, as your scurvy is cured!
Now you just have to deal with the crippling stomach pain.
You take the single potato to the supermarket checkout (go to part 10)
17. You arrive home to find that your husband has already drunk a whole bottle of budget German liqueur and has passed out with his face gently melting into the stove. Glad to have to time to yourself, you fail to check if he is still breathing. Instead you go into the living room to snuggle up on the sofa in front of your favourite soaps, with a lovely potato to snack on.
A good day!
THE END
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So you’ve navigated the supermarket and probably made it out alive! Join us next week when you attempt to post a letter, only to be accosted by migrant workers trying to force you into a visa marriage!
- Redfern
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