Shopping For Essentials
Posted on Friday, August 15, 2008I went down to Aldi for the usual Saturday essentials. The week’s shopping, y’know?
Normally, my shopping list contains two items:
1. Big pile of drink from Aldi.
2. Give Bullet loads of money for burgers.
This is how responsible parenting should be, but sometimes you have to step outside the main food groups, drink and burgers. Sometimes, you have to buy all those things that nobody notices, but that are absolutely essential. I’m talking about telescopic yard-brushes and things to screw down into the ground for holding up a parasol. You know the sort of thing you buy in Aldi and Lidl.
Oh look! There’s the fucking 40-man tent that I never realised I need until RIGHT NOW!! And a micro-battery underwater charger for baby listeners. Oh fuck, and a bottle of tarantula killer.
That’s the Aldi effect, as we scientists call it, though there’s another branch of science studying a similar, more downmarket phenomenon: the Lidl effect.
Solar powered garden gnomes. 
However. And this is a big however, I draw the line at some things.
Aldi and Lidl are both German, as you probably know well, and the Germans are big into the whole Green philosophy. They fucking love it.
Green, says the Germans. Let’s be as green as we can be. Greener than green.
Which is a good thing. I agree. Green is good. In fact, I’m about to put a solar panel on the roof myself and I try to compost everything I can. The grass clippings. All the toenail clippings. Dead dogs. Everything. What the composter can’t handle goes into the wormery. Yum Yum say the worms to the most appalling detritus.
But really, sometimes the Germans can be a bit much and today I found my limit.
Recycled toilet paper? Nein danke!
___________________
Previously:
Lidl Killers
Stumble it!
August 15th, 2008
In the history of crap ideas…
But one thing I’m curious about. Where did you get the micronanometer that is capable of measuring the nanodistance between ‘upmarket’ Aldi and ‘downmarket’ Lidl? It wasn’t Aldi, was it?
August 15th, 2008
Ah, you just know these things.
Me? Dead classy!
August 15th, 2008
My first time in Germany I saw an Aldi lorry drive past the airport and it reminded me of home.
August 15th, 2008
Yeah. I can see how that would bring a tear to your eye.
August 15th, 2008
Oh, how funny. The boyfriend and I had a ridiculous debate over whether or not I ought to be buying recycled paper towels…he didn’t think it was very hygenic.
August 15th, 2008
the Germans even like the blood in their videogames green I believe
August 15th, 2008
are those big box stores, sugar?
August 16th, 2008
The garden gnome or Gartenzwerg as they call it,is so popular in parts of Germany that it’s like a fucking national emblem,taken so seriously by some that there have been court cases over the use of the word Gartenzwerg as an insult or term of abuse.Try sticking both thumbs inside the waistband of your trousers, with your eyes bulging,raise your right hand and scream “Du bist ein verdammter Gartenzwerg”.Strange people.
August 17th, 2008
hey that 6.99 six pack beer is scrum didly gulp
nice
August 17th, 2008
I think it is recycled into toilet paper and not out of toilet paper.
By the way, my granny used to recycle shite. The raw material was provided courtesy of Merville Dairies’ horses and the rhubarb tasted fine.
August 17th, 2008
Well by golly! And there I was thinking it was recycled toilet paper.
August 18th, 2008
Just had a look at the weekly specials online, a Chrome heated Towel rack !!! at €99 how much bother could it be to let the towels in the hot-press?. If that doesn’t do it for you, then try this:- The worlds most unappetising flask - apparently you could eat your dinner out of it…..maybe in Ethiopia :
http://www.aldi.ie/ie/html/offers/2867_6761.htm
Not knocking the place though, I’d rather give them my money than to that shower of thieves in Tesco. So I heartily recommend the Munich Spater Bier…..off the neck after an hour in the fridge. Made for the Irish indoor BBQ season.
And the Croissants …and Brockwurst….und KartoffelenSalat….und die Munchenbier !!
Das ist !