Thursday, December 14, 2023

grocery shopping

 I had just entered a supermarket. It was a Lidl. I had cycled in. There was a room right next to the entrance, which was painted in bright colours and with stuff that might make it appealing to kids - a play room of sorts. Except that there were no toys, furniture, kids, or indeed any people at all in it. There was a cycle parked right in the centre of the room though, so I figured it might be acceptable to leave my cycle there as well while I shopped. I decided to stand my cycle against one of the walls of the room - and noticed there's a small door at the end of the wall. The door was locked, but I moved my cycle so that someone opening the door wouldn't knock it over. I then left that room and entered the store proper. There was a counter which had bakery items and a slicing machine. A man was at the counter as well, and it seems he was operating the bread slicing machine, which was unusual. The machine also looked different from the usual ones I've been using in Lidl stores. I saw the man put a bar of dark coloured cake to be sliced, and noticed it was being sliced into long slices instead of along the width of the cake as would be usual. Menawhile, the man was also making some sort of cheese toastie, except that after the toastie was made, he cut it into strips lengthwise, so it looked like cheese and bread strips. I asked him if he'd slice a loaf of bread for me, but he told me this counter was only for cakes and sandwiches. I looked for the actual bread slicing machine, but isntead found an entrance to another room. This room was colourfully (but not very brightly) lit, and had a comic book theme, including moving spotlights that contained colour projections of comic book characters. It seemed quite vivid and surreal. The room looked like it might have comic books, but on closer look, it was actually comic book themed greeting cards!

I picked up a very fancy card - I don't remember what was on the cover, but it was a birthday card. The inside ofthe card had a whole long message, which almost looked like a whole letter to the person whose birthday it was! Strange. Stranger though, was the fact that it was pre-printed with the name of the recipient and the sender! It was a birthday card to Stephanie from Roseanna. As I realized the names, I thought to myself, this can't be real! Why would a card shop in Lidl have a card which was clearly from my (late) aunt to my cousin?

And that's when I woke up.

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