The Waitrose Experience

My friends who are not from the UK may never heard of our supermarket Waitrose. It’s a great store with high quality goods but it does have the reputation of being, shall we say, the supermarket of choice for the middle and upper classes who don’t mind paying more for products if it means not having to rub shoulders with us common people! It’s the antithesis of Walmarts.

So when Waitrose asked its customers to tweet about why they shopped there, they got more than they bargained for. It was the ideal opportunity for the country to have a laugh at the store’s expense with both made-up and genuine comments.

Like this one: I shop at Waitrose because I once heard a woman tell her child, "Don’t rummage in the reduced bin, darling, someone from the golf club might see you."

Another wrote: I shop in Waitrose because I heard a 6-year-old boy say, “Daddy, does Lego have a ‘t’ at the end, like Merlot?”

Then there was: I shop at Waitrose because I was once in the Holloway Road branch and heard a dad say, "Put the papaya down, Hermione!" Similarly: I shop at Waitrose because Jocasta simply

WON ’T eat any other supermarket’s sun-ripened guava. And another where a mother asked her child, aged around seven, “What type of bread would you like to dip into your mussels?”

One person joked, 'I shop at Waitrose because Tabitha and Tarquin only eat phoenix eggs that have been collected by wizards who share their values.'

Then there was a Twitter account called Overheard in Waitrose, with posts like these: “Jemima, you’ll have to take the rosemary off the focaccia before we feed the ducks. Darling, they can’t digest it!” and a horrified husband who told his wife, ‘Not non-organic apples, darling!’  to which she replied, ‘Stop making a fuss. They’re for the horses.’

Waitrose customers demand high quality if this is to be believed: “Well, I don’t understand how you can’t have organic courgettes. Where is this? Beirut?”

Even the children of Waitrose customers are demanding: “Mummy, you must get me more quinoa, otherwise I’ll be a laughing stock during lunch at school,” and “Max, what do you want in your packed lunches, salami Milano or prosciutto in your ciabattas?”

And finally, someone must have been listening to me before writing this (I wish!): “I would cook scampi for dinner, but I just don’t feel I could do it justice after the way our butler cooked it on holiday."

Look at this: 

Such a naughty book from the irrepressible Toffee!

Here's her other book: Not So Sweet Toffee

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