Losing the gentle art of browsing (part two)

Recently, the ABC ran a series called Turn Back Time: The High Street, to which The Builder and I, in our fuddy duddy way, took a shine. The basic premise was that a group of modern-day shopkeepers moved into the High Street (main street for we Australian types) of a rather dour town in Somerset called Shepton Mallet (seriously, worth watching just for that, don't you think?). Once a thriving centre of hustle, bustle and industry, the SM High Street in 2010 was a cold, empty, boarded up and very unenthusiastic kind of place.

Each week, the shopkeepers were installed in a different era of the SM High Street, beginning with the 1870s and ending in the 1970s. The aim was to show the highs and lows of shopping over six different eras. To show exactly how and when personalised service was replaced by convenience. Exactly why the diversity of little shops and friendly shopkeepers were driven out of our main streets (because we suffer the same malady on the other side of the world) by homogenous brands.

We all complain about the two-horse race that is Woolworths and Coles but, as The High Street pointed out, it all comes down to our choices. We help to create the very situations that frustrate us.

One of the video stores in Fibrotown closed suddenly this week. The boys were devastated. It was our supplier of choice for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles DVDs. It also had a good foreign film section. I confess, though, that for everything else we tended to go to one of the others. Why? It was cheaper.

I know that in the scheme of things the humble 'video' store is living on borrowed time. One of our other stores is a Red Room, with it's automated doo-dads and it's tiny store space. No displays. No browsing. The Builder and I don't go there. Why? We never know what we want to see. We know we've missed 150 great films in our early child-rearing years, but do you think we can think of a single one of them on the way to the shop? No way. Red Room, and online DVD purveyors for that matter, seem to require that you know what you're looking for.

Where am I going with this? Choice. We made our choices and now we're left with fewer choices. Just as The High Street demonstrated has happened over and over again in the last 150 years of retailing. It's something that the dairy farmers of the South Coast would like us to remember as we pay for our cheap 'homebrand' milks at the supermarket. When the choice is gone, we have to take what we can get.

And, as many a regional town, with empty shops and dying populations can attest, what we get isn't always what we want.

The Red Badge of Courage: Fibrotown edition (an update)

Remember this story about the girl at the supermarket checkout? The one with the dreams of being a police officer and an HSC exam to get through?

It's been nearly six months since that post and I have an update. Our checkout paths crossed again today. Finally. I could hardly wait for her to get through the usual 'How are you today? Do you have a [insert name of loyalty card] card?' before the question came gushing out.

"How did you go?"

She looked at me blankly. "Your HSC," I said. "The police force."

She smiled. "I got the ATAR* I needed," she said.

I cheered. But wait, I thought, she's still here. At the checkout. Not at the Police Academy.

"And the police force?" I asked, crossing my toes, hoping against hope that this wasn't going to be one of those moments where I wished I'd kept my mouth shut.

She looked sad. "I have to wait until July to apply," she said. "You have to be 18 and a half."

So she's waiting. Which, as we all know, is the hardest part.

Stay tuned.

*The primary criterion for entry into most under-graduate university programs in Australia, giving you a rank in relation to the rest of the student body that sits the year 12 exams that year.


[image: This beautiful illustration by SarahJaneStudios/etsy is called 'waiting'.]

The Red Badge of Courage: Fibrotown edition

If you read this blog on a regular basis, you'd be under the impression that I spend a fair amount of my time at the supermarket. I've been lost in there. I've witnessed lost love. Today, I left inspired.

I know. From the supermarket. There's more to Fibrotown than meets the eye.

It all occurred at the checkout. Again. (Really, you've got to spend more time there.)

My checkout chick and I were making small talk. Laughing at the holiday-makers who'd just spent $978 for a weekend's worth of food.

"$978!" I shrieked. "Were there 20 of them?" She laughed. No, just the four.

"They made me feel kind of bad about myself, actually," she confessed, eyes down, scanning away. Blip, blip, blip.

I looked at her. Fresh-faced. About 18. We've spoken before. She's always bright, friendly and perky. And always, it seems, there.

"How so?" I asked.

"Oh, just in that talking down way that people have with us sometimes," she replied, waving one arm around to indicate her fellow workers. Blip. Blip.

I channelled Eleanor Roosevelt. "No-one can make you feel bad about yourself unless you let them," I said. She smiled and looked at me like I needed to get out more.

Our conversation moved on to how those crazy holidaymakers should have shopped with a list. "Do you always do that?" she asked.

I responded in the affirmative, outlining all the reasons why a list is a good thing (I don't write finance stories for no reason, you know).

"I try to do that," she said, setting me up for EFTPOS. "I cook a lot of my meals all at once and then freeze them. It's hard to fit them in with studying for my HSC and working here, otherwise."

I looked at her. She froze them? She must have seen the questions in my face. "I live by myself," she said, still smiling. "I go to school, work here and then go home and study for my HSC. I've always wanted to be a police officer."

Suddenly I remembered a previous conversation we'd had. Six months ago, she'd taken her pre-HSC police exam. I remembered her telling me, incredibly enthusiastically, how it would save time when she got her exam results. She'd be able to go straight off to the Academy. At the time, I admit, I listened with one ear, smiling and nodding, as she relayed just a little too much information. (Now I realise that maybe she told me because she didn't have anyone else to tell.)

She's all of 18. She's doing it on her own. She's still smiling.

Next time I see her, I'll ask her how those exams are going.

{image: TheExtentOfSilence/Etsy}