Parking, I am thinking. That’s where it starts. That’s where they get you. Because you probably live in a busy town. You probably have trouble parking.
Easing my way around the roundabout, I think: you do it because you don’t want to drive around in circles.
Part of you doesn’t really want to do it. But who wants to drive around in circles? In any case, what could be worse for the environment than people driving around in circles?
And then, once you’ve parked, you go inside, and everything feels airy and light. Still, you make up your mind to buy only a few things.
Maybe just meat and vegetables.
So the parking leads to the meat and the vegetables. But that leads to something else, doesn’t it? In some towns, that leads to the butcher and the greengrocer going out of business. That’s stage two.
But it doesn’t always end there. When the butcher and the greengrocer go out of business, some people don’t shop in the high street any more. So it’s not just the butcher and the greengrocer, is it?
These are my thoughts as I drive into Tesco car park. It is late afternoon on a Sunday. The car park is strangely empty.
Shit.
I sit there, head in hands.
I’m upset because Tesco is closed.
I’m upset because I love it so much.