Journey to Auntie-dom

An auntie is never quite an auntie, until she steps into the supermarket.  Not just any supermarket, but the "aunties domain" supermarkets - Sheng Shiong, Giant or Shop n Save, because NTUC and Cold Storage (with all their atas branches catered for the expats) are considered high cruss in the aunty-world.

Well, so here's an account of how I conquered the "Giant" (Tampines Giant Hypermart was chosen because it was the largest of all Giants):

You must be wondering what the crowd is doing, staring up at the travelator.  They were moving stacks and stacks of metal trolleys up the travelator to the holding area upstairs.  One worker was standing at the foot of the travelator, gallantly blocking the customers from going up, just in case the magnet on the travelator stops working and the entire stack of trolleys come rolling down (and crush you like a cockroach).  

Staring at the things moving at the speed of 10km/h is NOT the Singaporeans' national past time

Most of the items from my shopping list came from the fresh foods section, which was huge by the way.  I really got lost in the middle trying to find the items.  Midway through co-digging in the freezer with other aunties and checking my list, I suddenly realized that my shoes were in a smelly puddle of water.  I turned around and saw troughs of fresh fish in different colours, lying on a mountain of ice with their mouths agape, gawking and staring at me with their big round eyes.  Stare at me some more? I poke you!

Instant flashback:  Back to the time when I used to accompany my mum to the wet market as a kid (by force, no less), getting my slippers wet by puddles of the floor which probably consisted of melted ice, fish juice and a cocktail of chicken / pig / lamb / cow blood.  Telling myself that when I grow up, I'm SO NOT going to the wet market ever again.

*snaps back to reality* 

I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M STANDING RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF A WET MARKET DISGUISED IN AIR-CONDITIONING!!! ITS A TRAP!!!!

Finally, we finished gathering what we could and headed for the express lane.  We thought having a basket-load meant a shorter queue.  However, to our horror, the queue snaked and extended for a good 20 metres at least. We considered giving up and going off, but then, we've already wasted over an hour finding and collecting the stuff we wanted to buy (from the back of the shelf so that its fresher).

I half-wonder if they did this on purpose.  Temptation was at every turn. Can you see?  Both sides of the queue are lined with things you may just grab and throw into your basket on impulse.  Like the Nutella that I grabbed.  IT WAS GOING FOR ALMOST HALF PRICE LARRRR!!!!!  And we fought really hard not to grab those 'Healthier Choice Pistachios'.   

...Then hor, there were these 2 packs of sour gummies from The Natural Confectionery that I kapo-ed near the cashier counter last minute. :P

Erm.. this is what we managed to pull out of Giant (***'s crocs and leg hair not included).  The chicken, mushrooms and veggies were not as nicely packaged as those I saw in NTUC a couple of days ago.    Oh, I need to digress.  By the way, did you know you can now order stuff from NTUC online?  In other words, you don't need struggle with cartons of drink / rice / washing powder all the way home and end up with hair firmly plastered to your face by the sweat of your brow, in all sorts of weird formations.  You know what else this means?  You could do a facial at home while waiting for the poor (read: sweating profusely under the hot sun) deliveryman to arrive at your door.  Killing two birds with one stone right?

So end of the day, I conclude: 

我觉得我比较适合NTUC.

Conquer "Giant"? 一次就够了.  

But why do I have the nagging feeling that this will not be the last time ley?