Nickie Muir: Little folk running the real supermarket shakedown

Shane Jones

Shane Jones was wrong. His accusations about supermarkets shaking producers down for payments to ensure their products continued being stocked was way out of whack. That kind of stuff would be in the realm of bog-standard capitalism surrounded by a culture of passivity that allows the big boys to call all the shots.

Yawn. Positively amateur - anyone who has ever spoken to the growers who feed us will tell you that their relationship with supermarkets is hardly filled with love or good faith. But these guys are better than that. They're good. And by good I mean bad. And by bad ... I mean impressively, ingeniously evil.

I only realised they were really after world domination by reprogramming our offspring's brains, as I left for the supermarket the other evening to pick up some eggs. Just a routine pick-up of some shelf standards that were missing for the evening meal.

As I step out - the not-so-small-person-anymore, turned ... or should I say, swivelled her head and in a voice not quite her own said: "Mum. Go to Countdown. Spend more than 20 bucks. If you don't need to spend 20 bucks just buy some stuff that will add up to that. Hair ties. Jam. We need jam."

I thought it was odd. It bothered me as I wandered around the carefully constructed aisles that always seem to trap me in a shopping eddy right by the pinot gris. I bought a bottle - it was easier than buying five pots of jam.

It was only at the checkout I realised I'd been hypnotised. I paid the money and the cheerful check-out girl announced that I'd made it. I found it difficult to believe that my crowning success in life would be heralded in a lack-lustre supermarket in Whangarei but stranger things have happened.

She handed me a small package. I gave it back. "No, take it - it's yours, for spending over $20." I assured her I didn't need them. "I'm sure you have someone at home waiting for them." Then I knew. I was a bit player in an elaborate marketing plot.

I drove home. I may have actually muttered the words, "running dogs of capitalism" until I remembered I'd nearly wet myself laughing reading that exact phrase in a Burmese newspaper 20 years ago and seen it as a sign of socialist paranoid mangling of language.

As I walked in the door, I was mugged and the packets instantly confiscated by the small person. "Yay. I've got Bear Owl, although he's really not that rare which means I only have 16 to go and I have the whole set."

She starts to resemble the crazed Bear Owl. There was a furtive scurrying through the remaining cards. Desperate. Slightly deranged. "All the rest are double-ups." Her voice drops two octaves. "We either meet outside the supermarket and swap with the other kids on Sunday - or you'll have to go back for more." I head for the car, too scared to disobey.