Running on Empty?

(NIGE) Picture the scene if you will – It’s about 9:30 in the evening and your desperately searching the kitchen for a bite to eat. You discard the slightly green Custard Cream you found behind the breadbin, and are now staring thoughtfully towards the remnants of Kit-E-Cat your thoughtful moggy has left behind in his bowl. You eventually come to your senses and decide there’s nothing else for it, you’ll have to pop to the shops.

Unfortunately for you it’s 1964 and all the shops closed at five-thirty. So there’s nothing else for it, the catfood will taste terrible so you’ll have to eat the cat. Unfortunately the cat tastes terrible because it’s full of catfood.

This is the sort of scenario that may possibly have been happening all over the nation for all I know. Shopping was a fairly standard affair with meat being sold in the butchers and fruit and veg at the greengrocers. If you had a headache then it was off to Boots and if you wanted a condom then apparently you went to a barber to get “Something for the Weekend, Sir?”. It’s probably for this reason that young folk of the day invented the funky haircut, it allowed them to spend more time at the Barbers.

These days it’s all so simple. If I medically need a Pot Noodle at 11:30 at night I can just go down to the local garage. In the Sixties of course they had this crazy Idea that the local Petrol Station was somewhere to go and buy Oil-based products and get stuff done to your car.

Then oneday somebody had the bright idea of taking a supermarket, cutting it down to the basics and squeezing it into the garage. Of course the downside is that if your cars buggered then so are you, but at least you can microwave yourself a cheeseburger and chips while you wait for the RAC Man.

The other day I was queuing in a petrol station when I noticed that tucked away in the corner was a small shoe shop. You can actually go and get yourself a pair of hiking boots along with your Unleaded. I was tempted to enquire as to their footwear turnover figures but as the cashier stared in astonishment at my credit card as if he had just witnessed the worlds first electric lightbulb, I decided against it.

At this rate I am convinced that one day town centres and shopping malls will disappear completely to be replaced by one huge petrol station selling everything from HD TV’s to Camping Equipment. And if you get rid of those pesky pumps from the forecourts you could probably put in a very nice al fresco eating establishment and championship standard Tennis facilities. Oh what a world that will be….

…That is, until you run out of petrol!