Let’s meet at Shoprite! In loving memory of the good old days when we met friends, family, colleagues and also unexpectedly bumped into foes at Shoprite. Generally, Shoprite is defined as any square inch of earth within a 150-metre radius of the supermarket itself. That includes the Boda-boda stage across the road at Lugogo, downtown Kampala.
Remember that time when the person with whom you agreed to meet didn’t keep time? And so, you matched into the retail store acting like you were going to pick something important. In fact, at the entrance, you even peeked at your wrist watch while the security guard scanned you for explosives. You did that so they would notice that you don’t have all day!
You soon got in and there’s like a hundred shelves at your disposal to help you waste some time lollygagging as you wait for your unserious friend to arrive. It’s about 9:55am, but you prefer to start from the wines and hard drinks section!
When an assistant approaches and asks if there’s a specific wine you’re looking for; because you’re such a show off, you then act all-serious and pretend that what you’re looking for is quite sophisticated and the attendant can’t possibly know it! As soon as they leave you alone, you swiftly move on to the next section!
Before long, you’ve traversed all 20—please don’t go counting!—all 20 aisles of the supermarket, from the diapers to the cutlery to the plumbing, and you didn’t spare the women’s range either, yet you’re a guy!
You’ve been in there for about an hour and the operator of the CCTV cameras is now wondering whether you’ll be buying the entire store!
Finally, your nostrils drag you to the pastries and freshly-prepared foods area. In a short while, you’ll discover that this section is nothing more than a trap! You’re not hungry, but I can assure you, by the time you step out of Shoprite, you’ll be carrying two bags filled with all sorts of ready-to-eat food!
My personal favorite at the bakery was the “melting moments”. Gosh! Those cookies were like the sighting of a beautiful lady; you laid your eyes on them and the whole world faded away. Everything else ceased to matter! The most rewarding and fulfilling moment in life was when they surrendered to the power of your jaws and melted in the juices of your mouth! Ah! Priceless!
The beauty about those display containers in the food section is that you didn’t really need to know the fancy names those guys gave to their grilled chicken, fried goat, pasta, pilao and whatever else. All you did was stick out your boney index finger and go like, “Give me this, that and the other!” Meanwhile, they’re weighing your stuff in grams! Never mind the irony of buying 200gms of soup/gravey.
When your friend eventually made their appearance, the meeting agenda got thrown out the window cos this was now a food fest!
Now that Shoprite is exiting Uganda, shopping and window-shopping life seems be hanging in a balance! Where shall we find cheap and strange-tasting sodas? And for our people in the diaspora always asking us to send them spices from Shoprite: what shall we tell them?
Shall we henceforth still “meet at Shoprite”?
