I have just had my first experience at the new supermarket in our area; one of those abhorrently artificial, oversized Coles. I meandered among parents doing their weekly shop, wondering quietly if kilometers are being tallied as they try to navigate the large aisles. Apparently, supermarkets introduced large trollies so people would feel compelled to fill them. In my lifetime I have watched them continue to grow deeper, greedier. Today I stood aside for collision after collision as the women steering their heavy loads failed to do so.
Climbing back into my Peugeot, with the large red Coles sign still in view, I open my yellow tote bag. Inside is a packet pepita nut clusters, a raspberry kombucha, and a vegemite scroll; none of which I paid for.
This new Coles is actually an old Coles, though after a two-year renovation it shows no semblance of its old self. T would often point it out to me when we drove past the large crane towering over the braced building. He’d tell me, genuinely enthused, this Coles is the most frequented Coles in Australia, in terms of legs in legs out, highest annual spend, you know. The new Coles took so long, I think, because of the psychology that has informed the layout.
The fruit and vegetable section is the first thing to confront you upon entering. It is has been made to look extra appealing from deliberate lighting that brightens the colours of the fruits, as well as a light water spray that suggests they are straight out of the ground, farm-fresh. In reality, this spraying of water does little more than shorten the product’s shelf-life. Behind this section, along the back wall, is the bakery whose buttery, cheesy delicacies waft your way on arrival and will continue to waft around the 24-hour clock. I am being made to feel as though this is a healthy, fresh place that cares for fresh produce but at the same time fond and relaxed like I am in my family kitchen. The dairy section, which likely concerns nearly every shopper for at least one item, is positioned at the furthest point from the entrance, meaning I have to wade through all the very stocked and very colourful aisles to get my liter of milk.
Last night I stood in my parent’s kitchen rolling my eyes over the contents of the pantry. My mum has always, for as long as I can remember, filled our pantry with vast assortments of crackers, popcorns, biscuits, and other very snackable items. She usually stops off to get something for dinner and walks away with two new versions -to add to the other fifteen already at home- of cracker to slide under your cheese. They are opened once for a nibble and tied up with an elastic banned to accumulate over time, ultimately staling to inedible. Last night I came across an unusual healthy chocolate snack in the pantry incorporating puffed rice, nuts, and dried fruit, all of this was bound by a thin layer of dark chocolate. I know my mum favors one kind of dark chocolate and will rarely waver. The very same chocolate snack was at the end of aisle two next to the checkout at the new Coles today. The end of each aisle, as many will already know, is prime real estate. Brands will pay upwards of tens of thousands of dollars to market their goods here to seduce the masses, my mum being one of them.
I am not financially inadequate, though I have developed an inclination for thieving items from supermarkets; things I can afford, things I don’t necessarily need, or want. I don’t even know when I’m doing it and when I do, it is done. T says I have something called Kleptomania, which of course I went and looked up in my own time. Kleptomania, pronounced klep-toe-MAY-nee-uh, is the recurrent inability to resist urges to steal items that you generally don’t really need and that usually have little value. Reading further down the webpage about this disorder, I learn it is thought to relate to other disorders like those pertaining to eating and the considered aesthetics of one’s body. Those who have suffered from a personality or eating disorder are at a much higher risk of developing this habit of irrational stealing and two-thirds of people with known kleptomania are in fact, women. I sit for a moment to take all of this in.
I started slipping items into my blazer pockets at the age of 16; chronologically consistent with the time I had well and truly developed a warped body image and disordered eating behaviors. So, on a timeline, I am able to attribute the thieving to certain habits and thought processes I developed in my disordered eating days. My income, at the age of sixteen, was seldom abundant and I would steel for the comforting knowledge I would not be obliged to eat it, that I would not be out of pocket when I could not muster up the courage to swallow it. Walking the aisles of the supermarket I recall feeling hopeful, full of good intentions, as I filled my bag with dark chocolate, muesli bars, and juices. I remember then proceeding to the checkout with my bag of stolen items and placing a medium-sized apple on the scale, inserting the seventy-five cents, and heading on my way. The lack of economic footprint effectively creating a safety net, which to this day I cannot see past.
I used to punish my mum for purchasing the unnecessary abundance of snacks that she did, more and more varieties of what we already had. My dad would also join me in seeing red; he resented his lack of self-control with them. Oh, I don’t know they were just on special! she would say. I would lecture her about the psychological traps in supermarkets; pointing out the big decisions that had been made to orchestrate her shopping process, so by the end of it, the suits at head office feel sated having tipped her upside-headrush-down to ring every last cent out. Under the impression that I was teaching her something she didn’t know, I pleaded with her to stop.
Sitting in front of the kleptomania information webpage today my ignorance becomes apparent. I remember going as far as mocking her, my mum, full of her benevolent motherly concern. It seems she was buying it all, anything, everything, in the hope it would appeal to me enough to eat it.
Yellow Days 