Hello Again, Sydney

One Sydney-sider's experiences moving back to Sydney after a long absence overseas.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Whitegoods and Black Moods

Given that so many politically sensitive words have been expunged from the English language recently, surely it’s only a matter of time till ‘whitegoods’ disappears, particularly since most of them are now finished in stainless steel. I consider myself a bit of an expert on household products at the moment, as I’ve been trawling through the various retailers, looking for the best deal.

My first stop was, surprise surprise, Auburn, where a number of home-maker supercentres have sprung up close to my office. Though out here, where the M4 meets Silverwater Road (and the 14-wheeler and the articulated lorry play etc etc), ‘close’ is a relative term, especially when you’re walking.

That’s right, walking. The blocks look much bigger on the ground than they do in the street directory, and when you finally reach the humungous Bunnings warehouse, sweaty and knackered, you experience a strange epiphany. You know when you stand in front of a snow-capped mountain, or stare up at a clear night sky? You know that feeling of being dwarfed by the cosmos, when you finally comprehend I am nothing, and everything? Well standing in front of Bunnings is not like that at all. In fact, in a karmic sense, it is the exact opposite. If a person breaks down and sobs in the Bunnings carpark and no one is parked close enough to hear, does it make a sound? The answer – and I can vouch for this – is “yes”.

What you find also is that very few of the supercentres have marked pedestrian entrances. In one of them I asked a cleaner if he knew where 2nds World was. “Where is your car?” was his immediate reply. So I said, “Dude, where is my car?” Actually I didn’t. I said "I'm walking," and he looked at me like a piece of refuse that he'd missed with his squidgy broom.

I finally got the whitegoods I needed, but more of that in another entry.

1 Comments:

At 1:50 am, Blogger Becky Willis Motew said...

Hilarious, Mark.

I have never heard the term "whitegoods" and I'm older than dirt.

Is it like "hard goods," as opposed to "soft goods" in a department store?

I do know that feeling of I am nothing and everything. It's the ratio that's key.

love,b

 

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