Primarni doesn’t come with a smile

This ‘current economic climate’ is one long endurance test and muscle-toning exercise of our ability to post-rationalise those guilty shopping bags all the way home.

I am working out areas of my mind I’ve never used before in the quest to save a penny without scrimping on my materialistically-induced happiness.

Never before have I so fervently applied myself to the art form of baking. Recipes now followed to the last tablespoon and the oven sweating its poor socks off to keep up with one home-baked treat after another, which is then lovingly caressed by the glimmering glow of cling-wrap to await its stay in the over-booked freezer. It is then plucked out, transported with care to the office, unwrapped and nuked.

Yes, it is just one example of how I’ve let go of one treat to keep another one healthily in existience.

One new exercise regime I am finding hard to embrace is budget clothes shopping. I should feel overjoyed with my £15 ankle boot, but sadly it is over-shadowed by the black cloud of dissatisfaction.

I watch the glum androids of service staff as they avert their gaze over the top of many a greedy shopper’s head. And my thoughts wander to the utopian retail haven of enthusiastic, commission-driven shop assistants enquiring on whether I have the right size. I want to wander out of the dressing roam and bask in our collective admiration of the outfit choices I have made.

I want service with a smile.

Just like my frozen, home cooked lasagne in the middle after a five-minute microwave death it is time to deal with the cold harsh, fluorescent glow of when expectations collide with reality.

Over-attentive staff cannot survive in the bargain boot-camp environment of fallen clothes stripped off their hanger, shoes clumped in random piles and bonding with rolling tumbleweeds of dust and ill-placed human hair whilst the insanely glaring shopper negotiates their crazed path through what I liken to Discount Ground Zero.

So I wonder what has happened to this proud shop assistant.

Have they too adapted or are now rocking themselves to sleep after enduring a hostile day in a sparse, unforgiving cement shell that is now their nine to five retail home?

Or have they turned their back on the ‘crunch’ and sashayed off into the luxurious sunset with their smile and preened head-to-toe designer-draped self in tact.

Good on them I say. Good service should come with a price. And when all this is over I welcome your return and mine.

My credit card will be sure to welcome you with open arms.