Paul J Penton – Songwriter

Mayhem at the Deli – 9th April 2009

It started out quite innocent, just a trip down to the supermarket to buy an ice cream, specifically an Eskimo pie -a rectangular brick of Ice cream coated in chocolate – you can’t just buy one though, they come in a pack of six. You take home the polar blue packet and chisel out a space in the freezer – stuffing the packet between the fish-fingers and mixed frozen veg and then like a siren from antiquity they start calling to you.

So, there I am having acquired my box of pies, the chilled packet just beginning to nip at the pads of my fingers and the thought occurs to me to do a decent cooked breakfast tomorrow, being the death of the Lord and all. The notion of rindless bacon – though not exactly Kosher – got hold of me and I was impelled toward the deli. Arriving, it seemed there was an unusual queue of people for 9.18 pm on a Maundy Thursday, so I scooted around a corner display in search of a Vine ripened tomatoes, anticipating a thinning of the crowd. Well, it seems vine ripened tomatoes must be popular or out of season, for all that was left were a few orangey red pustules that held no interest So, back I hike to the Deli, all lit up like a cruise liner in standard fluro white with a couple of young Indian guys at the helm doing their best to manage the crowd.

It seems the ticket machine is quite some way out of order… people are almost having screaming matches and hissy fits because they reckon it’s their turn. I of course see it as a great opportunity for another story line so start texting it all into my mobile phone, not having a pen or voice recorder to make notes with. After the second minute of observation I gathered there was some sort of competition going on – a group of what sounded like Russian ladies in their late sixties, each with a coloured rinse hairset were having severe conversations with the boys running the Deli about “1/2 price”. My curiosity rose like a charmed viper… and then it dawned on me that the supermarket would not be open tomorrow so they were getting rid of all the deli stuff that wouldn’t keep, but, the ticketing fiasco meant the Russian ladies stood a good chance of missing out on some bargains…. I chortled and sniggered at the ridiculousness of it, but they seemed deadly serious. Maybe they were on a pension….definitely on a mission.

Right then, just when I thought I was about to be served, the numbers start whizzing by on the ticket machine 11, 12, 13 , 15 ,17 he called out – I held D41 .. faster and faster the numbers went by almost like a vignette from a classic piece of film Noir where calendar pages flip over simulating the passage of time… it got to 32 and he stopped…

The woman to my right was a late-comer I reckon and I just started to get a little ticked off as she jostled in, but indeed she did have 32. I mustn’t have noticed her. By this stage I am the only other person in the queue and I wave my D41 about like a team scarf at a football match attracting the attention of serving boy Number two. “1/2 a dozen bits of the rindless thanks”…. surprisingly he checks with the colleague #1 and I get it for half price! Beauty!

I begin to wonder if the Eskimo pies have begun to melt because it seems I’ve been here about as long as a polar bear stuck on an ice flow. At the checkout some of the Russians are bonded together in a caravan of shopping bags near the entrance of the store… again I start rippling with laughter on the inside, sniggering as I enquire about withdrawing a hundred dollars…… that and the Eskimo pies should see me through to Monday.