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Here is a short story written today. My first ever.
An Education
I began appropriating loaded shopping trolleys as a student while trying to eek out my meager budget. I had already had one full year at Uni and was hating it. I was tired of always watching my pennies, as the allowance my mother gave me was small, and my course load high. It really began just as a chance opportunity. I did not go to the shopping centre intending to make off with someone’s load of shopping, but there I was, sitting in the Mall deciding on whether to spend my last $15 for the week on much needed groceries or go to the cinema for the latest “Trekie” movie. I really wanted to see the movie, as everyone in class was talking about it and I felt left out. I was always just on the outer of the group; the poor country kid, not quite with it regards the current pop culture. I never had enough money to go to the bar, or the movies and my clothes were always the year before last year’s fashion. For once I wanted to be able to contribute to the discussion, but my student allowance was rarely enough for luxuries. As I sitting there, a harried lady left her overloaded trolley outside the chemist as she disappeared to make some purchase. She left it just outside the door, no doubt sure it was under her eye, but she disappeared behind a shelf with an assistant. I am not sure if I even made a conscious decision, but in a flash I was up and just walking out the door, nonchalantly pushing it away. My heart was beating and the adrenalin rushed, but no call or yelling came. Within minutes it was loaded into the back of my dilapidated car and I was off.
At home I took my time in unloading that first car load. I almost danced up the narrow stairs the top of the ageing complex. Never had I been so excited to get home to my pokey bedsit. It had seen better days but today for the first time it felt like home. It was never a place I felt comfortable about inviting anyone back to, but today it was my place, where I could delight over the pleasure awaiting me. I felt it was like Christmas, I had no idea what those plastic bags would bring. Every bag held a potential treasure and I would hold my breath as I slowly emptied each one, carefully displaying the contents over the tiny lounge room floor. It looked as if I had swiped a large family’s weekly shopping, but a wealthy middle class family. My small fridge and pantry would be bursting at the seams. I was delighted to come across frenchified lamb cutlets – the Rolls Royce of lamb chops. My mouth watered at the sight of them. There was also out of season blueberries. I always wondered who would be prepared to pay so much for these small punnets, that I had often yearned for when doing my own shopping. I would look at them, dream and then move on. Students ate instant noodles and bought the cheap cuts of meat and the in season fruit and veg.
But there were other things I knew not what to do with or were decidedly practical. An industrial amount of toilet paper, soap, toothpaste and some dandruft shampoo. I’d never used that before. But then there was the exotic, seaweed sheets and sushi rice; a pork shoulder roast, eggplants, avocado and a tub of facial cream. My mother had never liked pork so I grew up without ever having cooked it. Mum’s cooking was decidedly plain, the old meat and three veg. Then and there I decided I must use every thing that I had appropriated. There had to be a some integrity to this venture, and nothing was to be wasted. If this anonymous family had thought it important enough to buy, then I must use it, and so spawned a new interest in my life.
Over the next month every unfamiliar product was gone over very carefully. I read all the instructions and ingredient lists. I went to the student library and poured over cook books. I learnt to rub salt onto the rind of the pork and ate crackling for the first time. It was delicious. The egg plant became mousaka. I made sushi, reading about different fillings and learning the technique to roll the seaweed and rice. I did have to invest in a sushi mat, but this one haul kept me fed for close on six weeks with just minimal supplementation of bread and milk Facial cream was carefully rubbed on at night as per the instructions, I would stare carefully at my reflection in the small cracked mirror above the basin in the bathroom and in time my complexion cleared. With plenty of shampoo, my hair lost some of lankiness and the dandruff disappeared.
I made it to the “Trekie” movie, and when Monday came around I went to class with more confidence that I ever had, a spring in my step and smile on my face . I enjoyed a coffee in the cafeteria for the first time. I carefully listened to what the others ordered and chose a cappuccino. Wasn’t overly taken with it as it was lukewarm and not hot as I expected, but I felt almost a part of the group. I hugged my little secret to myself and could not help smiling When my next allowance came in I invested in a new pair of jeans.
I decided that I would do it again, but I needed to be careful. As a form of discipline, I would not allow myself to do it again until absolutely everything from the first trolley was consumed. It was the toilet paper that took the longest. 12 rolls for one person takes time. However, my little bedsit was cleaner than before. Amongst the cleaning products was a mould remover and it worked wonders on the ceiling and walls of the bathroom. The windows were cleaner and I also washed the tired curtains. It had become a bit of an obsession to use everything, and every time I did, it made me smile, a deep, inner smile. It was three months before I was ready to try again.
I went to a different shopping mall, and parked myself on a bench with a newspaper and watched surreptitiously. I dared not spend more than an hour at my seat, not wanting to attract attention I had been to St Vinnies and picked up a hoodie to cover my now gleaming hair. But I saw lots of anonymous youths. Hanging around shopping centres was the pastime of the young and I just melded into the background. Insignificant. However today I was out of luck. Women kept their hands on their trolleys and no opportunity came.
The following day I went to a Woolies that was in a shopping precinct rather than a mall. I carefully backed my car into a car spot in a smaller car park behind the library so that should I score I could be round a corner quickly and the car just there. It was a rather depressed area, and there were lots of family groups. A unseen busker, on a guitar, made a mournful noise that did nothing to improve the ambiance. Then my chance came. A father with a recalcitrant toddler left his trolley as his son ran off behind a building. I quickly grabbed the trolley an gave a wave to his departing back so any casual onlooker would think I had been waiting for him. I scurried round the corner, and had the car loaded in no time. As I queued to leave the car park, I saw the shopper come haring around the library, looking wildly around. He saw nothing and disappeared off running. I was so in control.
This load was not as interesting. Family packs of cheap mince, cat food and nappies. Fresh fruit and veggies clearly were not a large part of this family’s diet. There was a lot more processed food, frozen hamburgers, hotdogs, chips, biscuits and soft drink. I was not going to get the same pleasure from this load as the last. This was merely fuel for the engine not the brain. I carefully split up the mince in to more manageable sizes and popped them into the freezer. I poured a coke as I worked. What sort of family fed this sort of crap to their children I asked myself reading the ingredients list on the hotdogs. No wonder there was an obesity problem. I had really done them a favor. However, I had to stick to my resolve and ensure all was to be used. But then after stowing away all I could use, I was left with the cat food and nappies. I could not come at eating cat food and could think of no alternate use for the nappies. So that night I took the cat food to the local animal shelter and placed it in the one of outside cages left for dumped animals. The nappies I took to a daycare centre and left on the entry stairs. And so began what was to became a bit of a habit.
I was amazed at the difference it made for me. I made sure I never took more than six a year. Not much really, about one every two months. They were taken from different shopping centres. But a big family’s worth of groceries would last a slight person like myself for weeks. The additional funds allowed me luxuries I’d never had and with that came confidence. I got my hair cut properly, and over time my wardrobe increased. Not much, but just the odd item. I read the ladies magazines, often tucked into the top shopping bag, from front to back and learnt of style and colour. I also read the gardening ones, home improvement and one on cars. I was determined to learn from every trolley. I felt good every time I donated something, a modern Robin Hood perhaps. Everything was used or donated and just about everyone had a pet so the animal shelter did well. Once I got a packet of pansy seeds, so I dug up the tatty little garden bed in front of the complex, and that Spring we had a riot of colour as the flowers prospered. That garnered for me additional smiles and greetings from the other residents and I in turn smiled more. I learnt to bake, to consume the flour and eggs acquired. I ate curries and poppadoms, made Asian stir-fries. I drank bottled water, bathed with essential oils and whitened my teeth. I had not realized what a creature of habit I was with my shopping. I ate biscuits I would never have bought, yogurt flavours and cheeses I had never tried. Even if I scored something I did not like I would manfully eat it –fairy bread was the worst, but I did not know what else to use the 100s and 1000s for. It was amazingly invigorating to try something new and every trolley inspired me to do that. I felt so cosmopolitan.
I look back on those last three years of Uni with such pleasure. I had learnt so much from my trolleys. Every time I went home to the small country town I grew up in, my Mum would exclaim how much I had changed. How much I knew, when I cooked something different. How attractive I had become with a new hair style. When I got my first job offer, I decided it was time to stop. There had already been one story in a tabloid about some down and out family losing their weekly shopping – playing on the heart strings. I know that what they claimed to have lost was not what I found. There were no Chrissies presents for the kids in that load. But the time had come to stop. I felt there were more police on the beat at the shopping centres and at one I saw them installing additional cameras so I had done some good. And so with Uni finishing, I resolved never again. But, I find myself sitting at shopping mall watching the loaded trolleys going by and wondering what their contents may be.
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Moderate and moderation are not dirty words.
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). The stealing, the feeling of judgment for not "fitting in" and the confidence coming for all the wrong reasons; these are not what should be used to build a person up. I find it troubling. I'm curious to know if that was what you were aiming for? Or were you just trying to show a different perspective about how people may have gotten by?