Bright hot florescent lights pouring down on my head and fogging up my vision as I gingerly approach the double glass doors to be greeted by a bloated and bored looking security bloke and a stack of tatty blue string bucket baskets.Of which try to bully your brain into buying piles of clobber even before you've reached your first clothes rail.Is this scene sounding familiar to you, or am I the only one who gets shudders from the sight of a pesty Primark?
Now please don't write me off as some sort of fashion snob who only favours designer bags...high end fashion boutiques are alien to me,(hello sadly I still live like a stuck in a rut student, who gets happy on cheap bake beans and free music downloads)chuck away fashion and sales that are so cheap the items are practically free is all this girl knows.Not to be mistaken with actually liking throw away fashion;if I had it my way I'd avoid all them nasty fashion dive holes, crawling with slave labour germs (of course Primark have raised the penniless wage for the third world children now, so I heard on some channel four dispatches episode).Not that fancy fashion lables are completely innocent *cough bunny killers* but at least there is minimum sweaty plastic polyester and broken zips involved,right? So less than five minutes into Primark and like every other weak willed sucker I have one of those blue baskets
swinging from my arm and not one but two giant 4x4 pram's up my arse,and my nose has no other choice but to embrace the smell of a greasy KFC chicken burger that someone is juggling around with in one hand and the other has a complicated grip on several pairs of jeans and bags.
How I envy those other shoppers opposite,splashing out in Miss Selfridge and Topshop with their career bumped pay packets.'Don't drell on it,this is your pay day part-time wages is better than nowt.Now move it theres bargain bin priced brogues to buy, and a ten quid dress sale rail to invade',as I investigate arms of summer clearance clothes I convince myself that Primark can be as pleasant and enjoyable as any of those career girl type shops.A shop is a shop it can't define or stereotype a person.It is what it is.Oh I soon realise eveyone else in Primark, pushing their way through the same arm of clothes as me are mainly college students with messy hair and wearing band tee's.Luckily I efffortlessly blend in amoungst them scruffy lot, my odd embaressment concealed by my ensemble of cage the elephant tee and neon lace leggings.Cunning yeah yeah?Feeling awkward 'round about now.Awkward yet totally down with it,with them the college kidz.And what is this I see?Hmm nice navy blue and red bird print peterpan collar dress, how much, how much?
I eagerly yank out the swing ticket tangled up with a chain of hundreds of other garments,and not too unsimilar to that dark twisted scene from Black Swan.I now the mental case, catch a reflection of myself morphing into a greedy, hungry materialistic maddam.Gasp did I really just elbow some competition out of my way?Poor girl I never meant to, however if you will insist stepping in the way between THAT dress and I...you understand?Seconds later she gets one over on me, her revenge in the form of a sharp plastic and broken (Primark eh?)hanger stabbed into my side.Distracted I lose sight of my postition around the sale rail circuit.Coming in third place to a very pretty Alexa Chung style stalker look-a-like(why is she in here for?Can't she sod off and join the army of cool indie fans in Topper's!)who snaggs the last size 12 bird dress.Left high and dry with only bruised battered elbows and this annoying bloody basket catching onto everything and everyone,my blood boils I decide to depart from the sale vultures and drag the basket and I downstairs to the bag and shoe deparment.
All seems strangely quiet down here,obviously folk can't be much bothered to do shoe-trying-on, on Sundays. Probably too time consuming them roast dinners may be burning back at home,plus repeats of X factor are no doubt doing the rounds of repeat on the box?Must rush back for that. >SARCASM HERE<
All is calm,though evidence strongly suggests shoe lovers have already been and gone, I trip over buckles and heels, slip over laces and end up kicking a pair of fake converse imposter's across the floor in rage (shortly followed by a heavy does of guilt.Such a vandal.Somebody has to scoop this shoe carnage up at the end of the day.Saving up for good karma I do a u-turn and pop the canvas trainers back onto the shelf).Pointy leopard print flats saves me from having a shoe break down.Primark brings out the OCD monster within me,stress levels shoot up at an alarming rate and my head is spinning whilst searching for the correct price tag.No easy feat,problem solving is much required,as there's pen scribbled across the prices.Aahh all the swing tags have graffiti on them.Are these shoes, £15,£12,£10 or £5!Throw caution to the wind I add them to the basket despite whether the shoes will rape my purse or not (I know what your thinking, Primark.Dead cheap.Cannot damage bank.Yeah well it can when your a part-timer-higher-education-debt kinda of gal Okay?Good.Good),standing at till point some funky £2 pack of socks begin to seduce me.'Resist and whatever you do don't cave in,plus do you really need panda patterned socks?Primark has you right where it wants you.Don't allow yourself to become another victim of their merchandising tricks.Your better than this,don't let a sock break you down.'This boredom is beginning to have a rather strange affect on me,hurry serve me let me at that till...I need to punch my pin in and get the hells outta here, pronto!What do you know, wish granted after several customers are defeated, truth be told I wasn't too far behind ditching my no frill fashion goods either.The speedy shop assistant scans through my basket (of which I'm delighted to be parting with!)I clock up a grand total of £35 on nothing too super special,my regret kicks in faster than my receipt is shoved into my bag.Paper bag.No wait I hate, hate, hate paper bags, they scream out 'TRYING TOO HARD TO BE CONTEMPORARY,CLEAVER,COOL AND SOMETHING YOUR NOT'.I've had way way too many awful experiences with Primark paper bags, one involving a down pour of rain when my paper bag turned to a heap of messy mush.I can only await to see what bother this horrid brown paper bag is going to cause me.Legging it away from the creepy clutches of Primark, I sprint out of the bright,lights and stuffy shopping centre atmosphere.Though the speed of my sprinting just isn't enough to leave behind my shame and guilt of wasting money on a pile of what?On a pile of utterly pointless Primark bits and pieces,lose threads and wonky seams which my ignorance has chosen to ignore.Of course if it had been any other garment from any other highstreet store,I'd have snubbed such shoddy style whilst rolling me eyes and mumbling to myself in the corner about how disgusting the price is etc, etc. Only etc's don't come into the sensible equation when caught up in the Primark moment, that fast fashion frenzy...*shocker the fragile flimsy handles on my paper bag have fallen apart along with all my fashion morals and that little thing called willpower.I think your find that has been back at the Primark baskets?
