THERE really are people out there who need to get a life, and the person who decided to ban shoppers from wearing jammies while shopping in Tesco is one such an individual. For goodness sake, what next? Why object to jimjams in particular? Would it be OK if we went shopping topless?
Tesco, you are getting too big for your boots. But every time this is pointed out, the company simply acquires bigger boots. Not content with dominating the world of retail, it would seem the store now has its very own dress code, or, rather, should I say undress code.
Excuse me while I don my ball gown and tiara and nip out to Tesco to buy a dishcloth. Do we need to apply make-up and have our hair done as well?
The manager of a store at St Mellons, Cardiff, has decreed that, henceforth, no customers can shop in their PJs. There is just one big problem, however. Tesco’s own long-running advert happens to feature Men Behaving Badly star Martin Clunes nipping into Tesco for some milk, in a pair of striped pyjamas.
A touch of the old double standards, surely? It is OK for celebrities such as Martin, but not for the rest of us commoners.
A spokesman for Tesco gave a typical response to the accusation of double standards when he said: “We also have an advert featuring a shopper being picked up by a hot air balloon and we do not provide parking facilities for balloons.”
Pardon the pun, but the only balloons in this ongoing row are the top brass at Tesco.
It’s not as if these female customers were turning up at the store in skimpy baby-doll nightwear or boob-tubes. These are people, mainly harassed mothers, nipping into the store after the school run, wearing what is loosely known as leisure wear. It is almost impossible to tell the difference between casual clothes and night attire.
The woman who was thrown out of Tesco in Wales for wearing jammies, Elaine Carmody, was very upset about what happened.
The only sign that she wasn’t wearing the new Tesco uniform, officially approved by the British League of Decency and Moral Standards, was the fact that she was sporting fluffy bunny slippers. All she needed to complete the picture was rollers in her hair and a fag hanging out of her mouth.
I would have you know, Mr Tesco, that we girls are very fond of our PJs. I wear a goonie rather than PJs. Goonies are long and flowing, very Wee Willie Winkie. I wear my goonie to go to work – mainly because my office is in the house. I have been known to go to the supermarket in my goonie with a coat on top.
I did get one or two strange looks, but I get strange looks anyway, so I am used to it.
The trouble is, as a society, we are becoming more and more slob-like with every passing year; somewhat prone to letting ourselves go.
Whatever happened to yummy mummies? Remember them? The term was shorthand for: “Gosh, there’s a woman who has just had a baby and – shock, horror – she is looking passably attractive.”
She hasn’t gone the way of most women who have just sweated through giving birth and are child-rearing 24/7.
I think 2010 must be the decade of the slummy mummy. She goes to Tesco in a manky T-shirt and last year’s tracky bottoms. She has flaky, chipped nails and her hair looks as if it has been in a fight with a burst couch. Slummy Mummy’s clothes, furniture and bedding are lined with baby vomit and sundry other bodily fluids. Her walls are a mass of jammy fingerprints.
Slummy Mummy is a bit of an eyesore, especially when out in public. She drags herself along to watch her son playing football; she bakes – badly – she is a “desperate housewife” all right, but not in any glamorous sense.
So what? She has children. That means get up very early, change nappy, comfort baby, wash endless clothes, shower, leave for busy job, back home, snatch quality time, feed baby, bath baby, do whole day’s washing up and housework, cook dinner for self and husband, put baby to bed, comfort crying baby, sterilise tomorrow’s milk bottles, pass out.
For such mothers, the real problem lies with Tesco. The stores are everywhere, spreading like a nasty rash across the face of the Earth while the friendly corner shop is gradually being eradicated. Each time you pause to take a breath, another Tesco store opens. Give me the small corner shop any day. Give me character, distinctiveness and friendly personal service.
More than half of 1,600 shoppers surveyed believed their choice of supermarket reflected their social status. One in 10 of the shoppers questioned said they were embarrassed to be seen shopping in certain supermarkets, while a similar number thought frequenting upmarket stores would make them appear better off.
Almost half believed being seen with the right carrier bag was THE way to look hip – even if they were in their PJs at the time. So the supermarket in which you shop is a manifestation of your middle-classness or otherwise.
I have to admit I do not fit the bill where this research is concerned. Middle-leaning-towards-upper class, I shop in Asda. This allows me to observe Scotland’s obesity problem up close. There is fat everywhere in this supermarket: fat shoving trolleys down the cake aisles, fat dripping off the pastry shelves and buying Indian takeaways.
I have never seen so many enormous people under one roof; chubby shoppers to a man, woman and child. Shopping at Asda does wonders for my self-confidence. It almost makes me feel like some sort of sylph, which I am not.
One solution for those women who are desperate to shop in their pyjamas would be to do it online. It saves petrol, costs less and you don’t need to dress up.
Every little helps.