Five reasons we love Waitrose

Mum and child talking about Waitrose

Ahhhh Waitrose. The place of much ascending and descending fun for our beloved Jude. I’m not sure if our Waitrose is a particularly special branch of the supermarket or if the traits we witness on a weekly basis are general Waitrose characteristics. Our town is known to be rather full of wealthy individuals; peacocks and the like who love to strut their stuff, fluffing feathers and flashing Coutts cards at every available opportunity. And they all naturally gravitate to Waitrose to buy their family essentials.

But more importantly for us. Waitrose has a lift. I don’t shop there a huge amount…it’s not possible with the rate Jude eats his food. We’d be broke before we knew it. But the lift is great fun, especially when Jude “invites” other people in with us and their faces show absolute bewilderment at the situation.

It’s the lift that draws us there. But what Jude doesn’t see that I do is the apparent species of individual residing in such a store who cause me to turn rather mamma lioness. Not all of course but I have noticed a higher ratio of these people than in any other supermarket.

With my fifteen pairs of eyes, I’m able to scan the entire shop and spot the folk likely to cause me to rage. It was this Waitrose where the infamous “perhaps he just needs some love” comment arose. Oh yes. A woman of around 900 years old decided to…rather bravely…approach me whilst Jude lay screaming on the floor and gave her offerings of how I should help the situation. Naturally, I offered her a smile and thanked her for the usefulness of the comment. Not really. I told her that funnily enough, I do love my son and basically to f*** off and mind her own business. I wasn’t in the mood for small talk on the pros and cons of meltdown management.

 

BUT despite all this, we love Waitrose, we really do. And here are some of the reasons why…

 

  • You can find the most amazing things in here. It’s like a haven for all those super special fancy ingredients you only hear about in the poshest of cook books. Ever wondered where to find Nduju paste or Shichimi Togarashi. Me neither! But you know if you saw a jar of it you’d be tempted to buy some and find out what it is/does/smells like.

 

  • The hilarious parodies are true. So funny are the things you hear in Waitrose that several social media handles have been created in their honour and hundreds of web pages are dedicated to some of the more hilarious quotes.

“Sebastian, stop hitting your sister or you won’t get any Brioche.”

“I’ve just spoken to Susan and she’s still doing the ironing and there’s nothing worse than being in your own house when the cleaner is still there.”

Such perilous lives.

 

  • The sushi bar. Now I know I’m going to sound like one of the people in the point above BUT the sushi bar is awesome. They make delish vegan sushi for me and I love them. In fact, their vegan section is amazing in itself, I love it and the effort they are making to create an interesting and diverse selection of food. Back to sushi…even Jude likes some of the options there and Emmeline had a hissy fit last week as I didn’t save her my last bit of sushi. Such a Waitrose child…

 

  • Their definition of “essential” is rather questionable. Who knew that Mini Rosemary & Sea Salt Focaccia was an essential food of life? It apparently is to the discerning Waitrose customer…

 

  • The car park is a comedy show. I’m not going to lie, but I have laughed my head off whilst watching some of the Waitrose customers trying to park their enormous Land Cruisers, Porsche Cayennes and the like into the anciently tiny parking spots at my local Waitrose. The carpark hasn’t changed since I was a child but the cars certainly have. I remember once, I sneakily cut across a car park aisle with arrows pointing the other way (shoot me now) for about about 5 metres (no exaggeration) to reach the parent and child parking spots. A vigilante style Granny leapt out from between some parked cars, held her hands up at me and shouted “STOP!”. Thinking there was some sort of emergency, I buzzed my window down only to be confronted by this do-gooder telling me off for driving the wrong way down an entirely deserted lane. Honestly, there are no words. The troubles of a Waitrose shopper are ones to be desired.

 

  • Ok one more…anyone else feel that absolute pressure of taking only the best shopping bags with you to Waitrose? I genuinely left the car and returned to the house this week to replace the Co-Op bags I’d picked up with an M&S Christmas bag and my virtuously reliable canvas shoppers. I don’t want to be whispered about.

 

I could go on for hours but I won’t. Waitrose, we love you.  I’d love to hear your stories of humour from your local Waitrose store.

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