Aisle Be Damned

Date: 11/3/2025

I’m at the depot and all hell has broken loose. People are spitting feathers — literal feathers, almost — because the whole place has had a makeover. A facelift. It’s like we’ve woken up in a corporate dollhouse. You’d think World War III had broken out, judging by the hysteria. There are tears, tantrums, someone is kicking an innocent bin. Thwack-thwack-thwack. Poor bin never saw it coming. I duck and weave through the battlefield of outrage and despair, fearing for my own life. Arms flail like malfunctioning windmills. People are losing their heads — some metaphorically, some perhaps not. Then, amid the chaos, I lock eyes with someone familiar-but-not. He looks serenely calm, like a saint who wandered into the wrong party. He’s new, probably his first day. Poor sod. What a baptism of fire. I hide behind him, shamelessly using his body as a human shield. He smiles, misreading the situation. He thinks I’m flirting. I’m not. I’m simply trying not to die. Then The Big Boss bellows, “GET A FUCKING GRIP, PEOPLE!” The room freezes. Mid-punch, mid-scream, mid-nervous breakdown. Even a single tear halts mid-cheek, suspended like a tragic punctuation mark. “Change is necessary!” he roars. “We will NOT survive without it!” His words echo through the silence like a sermon. I want to believe him. But I don’t like change. Change gives me hives. The scene dissolves in a hiss and mist — like someone just spray-painted the air. Suddenly, I’m on Glow Up, the TV show. I’m not a contestant or host, just an observer with front-row seats to fabulous madness. Keye from Married at First Sight UK is mid-makeup — completely absorbed, face glowing like divine intervention. He’s applying blusher with a bag of frozen peas. Frozen peas. I stare, spellbound. “What kind of genius is this?” I whisper to myself. Note to self: must buy frozen peas. Next station — another guy, vaguely familiar, is spray-painting his model’s face tin-man silver. The poor model coughs, waving his hand like he’s flagging down an exorcist. His eyes water, twin wells of regret. “Don’t take a selfie!” the makeup artist snarls. “I don’t want leaks on social media.” “I’m opening a window,” the tin man croaks. “I can’t work with these bloody divas!” I drift to the side of the room where my boys are slouched like overgrown marionettes. My husband, Mat, perches on a stool across from them, looking like he regrets every life choice that led to this moment. The boys are being… the boys. Alex shouts, “I’ve got balls in my jowls!” followed by “Deez Nutz!” and “These hips iz thick!”. Every phrase drops into the silence like a bomb. Mat’s face reddens to a shade Crayola would call Parental Shame. “You okay?” I ask. “Mandy,” he mutters grimly, “we need to get the boys new joggers.” I turn to look — and gasp. Their joggers are shredded with giant Swiss-cheese holes. “Holy shit,” I say. “We’d better go to Asda. I need peas anyway.” And, as if by magic, we’re in Asda. New joggers? Check. Frozen peas? Double check. My family trails behind me like ghosts of the fashionably damned. We near the exit when I stop dead in my tracks. There’s a fortune-teller’s booth — straight out of the film Big. My stomach turns over. Something’s off. Behind the glass sits my friend Liz, dressed like a mystical relic. Perfectly still. Eyes blank, fixed on eternity. “Liz?” I whisper, tapping the glass. No response. “Shall we put a quid in?” Mat asks. We do. The booth whirs to life. A haunting jingle fills the air — something between a lullaby and a threat. Liz’s eyes snap alive, but her voice comes out monotone. “Someone will come into your life very soon,” she drones. And right on cue, a tap on my shoulder. It’s Hippy Laura. “You can tap all you want,” she says mournfully. “She sold her soul to the FTS.” “The what?” “The Fortune Tellers Society,” she sighs, as if that explains everything. I slap the glass, desperate. “Liz! Come on, wake up!” Liz’s mouth opens — too wide, impossibly wide — and a cascade of frozen peas spills out. A green waterfall of horror. Laura squeezes my shoulder gently. “It was nice to see you,” she says, and walks away, leaving me knee-deep in frozen peas and dread. And somewhere, faintly, I can still hear The Big Boss’s voice echoing through the walls of my brain: “Change is necessary.”