All entries for Tuesday 26 October 2004

October 26, 2004

It's the all–new adventures of CAMP COSTCUTTER MAN!!!

It was a lovely day on campus. The crisp, cool air made for a bracing walk across to the main bus stop in preparation for the inevitable trial of the journey back to Leam. Surveying the premises like a world-weary hawk (I had, after all, apparently been here since the days of Nixon's carpet-bombing of Cambodia), I absently-mindedly passed the imposing retail emporium known as Costcutter, a store which usually offers neither cut costs nor convenience – a perverse enterprise, to be sure.

- But wait, what's this?! Dolmio stir-in sauce for pasta, buy one get one free? Whizzer! Patak's curry sauce on offer? Topper! Robinson's assorted squashes, B.O.G.O.F. and kiss your mother goodnight in the bargain?! Beezer!

Abandoning all notions of getting home before a burly Security Guard starts lording it over the entrance to Fopp, I quickly cast off the shackles of consumer restraint and hared it towards the untrustworthy automatic door, pausing warily at the moment of truth to see whether or not it would open in time. Naturally, I was misguided in my zealous quest for satisfaction, and upon proceeding forth it brutally twatted me in the face, before creaking ajar with all the haste of a drunken snail with M.E.

Once inside, I whipped up a basket and impatiently piledrived my way through the hordes of irate foreign students disgustedly eyeing the manky vegetables and wondering at exactly what point leaving the fresh produce of their home nation for three years of decrepit, sorry-looking yams at yesterday's prices becomes worthwhile. Whizzing through each aisle like a man possessed, I swiftly filled the cockteasing plastic receptacle with bargainous produce, and skipped with carefree abandon towards the nearest till.

However, by thoughtlessly depositing myself in the first available queue, I had inadvertently sentenced myself to an impending moment of genuine discomfort. For there in front of me was the king of curly-haired consumer camp himself. You know the one. By night, a card-carrying, salad-eating, Bacardi-Breezer-ordering, fully-paid member of the Village People fan club. By day, a masked avenger defined only by his less-than-incongruous superhero identity… CAMP COSTCUTTER MAN!!!

"Oooh, Dolmio on offer!" he squealed in delight, forcing an involuntary grimace from myself as he tossed the 'Next Customer' barrier down the slat towards the next unwitting stooge waiting helplessly in line. "Do you need any help packing?", he asked, before feintly placing his hand on my arm and whispering the immortal kiss-off: "I certainly don't…". I forced something resembling a wan half-smile as he giggled to himself, running the rest of my items through the till with effortless grace while blissfully stroking his own thigh. "Oooh let's see, that's… £6.71 altogether, please!".

"Do you, er…", I stuttered manfully, anticipating the inevitable fallout of my next query; "Do you take plastic?".

"Oooh, sonny-boy, I take anything you want me to!"

My eyebrows formed an involuntary wrinkle of exasperation as I sheepishly handed over my card. Upon signing the requisite documentation, I snatched the card from his grasp and hotfooted it straight towards the door, readying myself for the possibility of leaving a cartoonish Mr Agreeable-shaped hole in the bastard should it not open quick enough. However, one last revelation was to befall me, a moment of verisimilitude which would rock the foundations of my world to their very core.

"Hey sonny-boy!", I heard him whistle from behind. I turned, half-expecting to see him pantomiming the shape of a phone in the internationally-recognised gesture for 'Call me'. Instead, what greeted me was an act of kindness unprecedented in the history of human interaction.

"Forgot your free savings leaflet!", he lisped daintily.

"Gee thanks, slightly-fey and unnervingly theatrical retail assistant!", I jeepered back in surprise and gratitude, whipping the aforementioned piece of high-street propaganda from his delicate wavering fingers and depositing it in my somewhat-strained carrier bag.

"Oh, that's alright", he sing-songed in a suddenly rather endearing and decidedly subversive parody of masculinity. "It's all in a day's work for… CAMP COSTCUTTER MAN!!!"

And with that I was away, safe in the knowledge that the world was safe from lapsing into a morass of conservative gender politics and staid sexuality once again. Thanks, Camp Costcutter Man!