WE live in interesting and acquisitive times. I ponder this as I stand squarely in the middle of a large department store on the day after Boxing Day, observing the carnage that surrounds me.
I have foolishly, forgetting the day that’s in it, wandered in from the street to buy some miniscule batteries, otherwise unavailable at the usual petrol stations that don’t sell petrol anymore (too near the border). Nevertheless, I am here and it’s not a pretty sight.
The end of trading hours is nigh and signs of sale frenzy are all too evident. Hitherto desirable goods are scattered about the floor, rejected for some obscure reason by the locust-like mob that has thundered through and ravenously consumed the contents of the place all day. Most of the baseball-capped bargain-hunters have gone home, sated, exhausted, clutching half-price Dysons and wafer-thin DVD players that won’t play American films.
Only the hollow-eyed hardy few remain, staring wanly at a shelf that just this morning was piled high with television sets that played both DVDs and VCRs; a snip at 80 quid. All, alas, gone.
But, wait! I hear a faint trundle of wheels in the distance. The remaining shoppers hear it too and their heads rise, swivel and turn like meerkats on surface duty. A puffing, acne-blighted youth wearing a dun-coloured shopcoat appears on the horizon pushing a creaking trolley that contains, yes, more DVD players. Word of his impending arrival spreads quickly.
From all corners of the vast store gather isolated men and couples clutching hands. A grim-faced queue forms behind the speckled youth, tacked to his wake. He is now the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
Urgent inquiries concerning the availability for sale of the machines are fired at him from all angles. He remains resolutely silent and stares grimly ahead as he wills his burden forward towards whichever shelves may or may not constitute his destination. Because, wait, maybe the machines are not for sale at all! Maybe the spotted youth is merely moving them from one store-room to another.
The youth’s unwillingness to communicate seems to come easily to him. A natural.
He becomes animated only when one of the more enthusiastic and excitable bargain-hunters can contain herself no longer and impulsively snatches one of the DVD players from the pile on the trolley, drinking hungrily of the specifications printed on the box. With snarl and twisted mouth the facially-poxed adolescent cruelly wrenches the machine from her grasp and returns it to its rightful position. He speaks not a word and presses doggedly on. The bargain-hunter seems temporarily crest-fallen and humiliated but soon snaps out of it.
One hundred yards down the dog-food aisle, the bearer of the DVDs stops unexpectedly before a tower of empty shelves. He begins to unload and stack the machines thereupon. The crowd tenses.
The DVDs are not priced. The shelf-stacker takes cruel pleasure in knowing this. He completes his task and stands with arms crossed admiring his handiwork. The crowd fidgets as a thin smile creases his lips.
He reaches within the confines of his scuffed coat and slowly produces a piece of cardboard upon which is printed the magic figure of 40 quid. He bluetacks the sign onto an adjacent ledge and withdraws speedily as the shoppers fall upon the goods with an intensity that borders on the feral. I reluctantly tear myself away.
Later that day I load my car with a bunch of surplus Christmas cr*p and drive towards a communal council dumping facility. A long line of cars precedes me. As I approach the dumping area, I observe people darting excitedly from their vehicles and enthusiastically discarding their old microwaves, Hoovers, TV sets, VCRs and washing machines. I notice that most of the dumped electrical devices are still fitted with plugs.
In our haste to be rid of the goods we can’t be bothered to remove them. Takes too much time.
We jettison with the same urgency and excitement that we display when we acquire.
I ponder on the human condition and wonder what it’s all about.
I realise with a certain finality that this is why we’re all here on this Earth.
The bit between buying and dumping isn’t called life, it’s called waiting.
Happy New Year.
Originally published in The Belfast Telegraph