Canadian supermarkets

Fuck Canadian supermarkets!
Walking through their doors
Is like entering some
Parallel
Surreal
Universe
Like asking a man in a corner shop
For a can of coke
And the man says
That'll be eight thousand pounds please
Like those crazy strip joints in London
Where strippers dupe you into glasses of champagne
That cost more than they do
(Never happened to me)
I'm pissed man!
All those years in England
Honing my shopping skills
Getting my routine down
My
System
Home Bargains for ninety-nine pee
Eggs (free range; six; large)
Pesto (Bertolli, mind)
Jars of Patak's curry sauce
Four-packs of lovely triple-ply toilet roll
Two hundred and fifty gram
Bags of figs
And then skip on over to Morrison's
For a five hundred gram bag of dates
One pound twenty-nine
(Seventy-nine pee in Home Bargains
Though not as good)
A loaf of Burgen's
Often but a quid
A lovely block of mature cheddar
With nothing weird added
Three hundred and fifty grams
For one pound eighty
(That's not the cheapest, mind
But one must buy good cheese)
And pizza
And veggie sausages
And lentils
And all the other things I buy
(There are probably other things)
And now it's like
All of a sudden
Some fucker's gone and changed the rules
Placed numbers next to products that
Do
Not
Belong
Six dollars
For a dozen eggs?
Five bucks
For a jar of cooking sauce?
Four dollars
For a loaf of bread?
I had it down, man!
But the rug's been pulled
And the cheese is not only
Crazy Martian prices
But a crazy Martian colour too
It bounces when you drop it
You sink your teeth into
Spongy
Rubber
Plasticine
No flavour
No resemblance
To cheese
To food
To anything of this world
And nobody bats an eyelid
I'm -

I'm cross about other things, I guess
I need a victim to take it out on
The prices here are mental
But people I respect
If I ever dared tell them
Would only say pertinent things like
"Shut the fuck up, Rory"
And
"If you don't like it
You can always go home"
And
"Anyway, isn't it a small price to pay
For all the awesome things you get
By being here?"

I'm sorry
You're right
I just struggle sometimes
I'd be the same in Switzerland or Japan
It's just taking my brain a little while to adjust is all
Well I've whooped it up in places like India
Now we get
The balance
I just wish I had appreciated more
That I lived in the greatest supermarket nation on Earth
Kissed the Kettle Chips that cost eighty-nine pee
Hugged tight tubs of margarine
That are always half-price
And wept with gratitude
To see men on market stalls
Selling enormous bags of
Bananas
Satsumas
Aubergines
Courgettes
For one pound
One pound
Everything's always one pound
I bet even maple syrup's
Cheaper in England
I -
No
I'm wrong
I just checked
It's not
Woohoo!
I think I've found some thing
Some reason
To live on



(The above 'poem' is written with tongue firmly in cheek. As if I'm really that anal and uptight and grumpy. As if.)