Wondermart

Let me preface this by saying I had the strangest experience this morning. My tram was full and this woman got on with her toddler who was probably small enough to fit in her handbag. Why you would bring a little kid on a tram tetris-style packed to the rafters with big bad uni students is beyond me, but this woman was using her kid (if it was hers) as an excuse to get first preference for everything from getting on the tram to validating her myki. She was saying things like "make room, can't you see I've got a small child" as if there's some unspoken rule on public transport that having a child with you is the same as being in a wheelchair. All of this would sit easy with me if it weren't for the fact that they could have walked to wherever they were going and if the kid hadn't somehow got her foot stuck in the doors when they were getting off, creating five minutes of panic during which people crowded around trying to pull her out and screaming at the tram driver "open the doors! No, close them!...Open them and then close them!!!" like a mob of headless chickens. I felt sorry for the poor child. Everyone was acting like it was 9/11 all over again.

Anywayzzz...Wondermart. But first some background information.

Wondermart is an mp3 which you download and listen to in a supermarket. For the ensuing thirty minutes, a silky-voiced European woman whispers instructions in your ear and you're supposed to follow them without question. It's basically a one-man performance in which you are both the audience and the actor and it offers a kind of deconstruction of the world of supermarket shopping. This was my Script for Performance homework and it sounded like a weird enough experience so I thought I'd check it out.

Everything that follows contains massive SPOILERS so if you're interested in experiencing it for yourself take note that I'm about to ruin it for you like a bastard.

The first thing you do is stand outside your chosen supermarket while the sexy voice does a soundcheck. After that you grab a trolley and that's one part you don't want to miss because the trolley plays a big part in the recording and you'll look like an idiot pretending to have one so it's best to grab one when Sexyvoice tells you to. Once you enter the store you get a couple of free minutes to go around collecting items that "represent you" and put them in the trolley. I grabbed some AA batteries, a roll of toilet paper, a scourer and some washing powder. When your time is up it asks you to stop and find someone who looks "more powerful" than you. Since there was only one other person in my aisle I picked her. She was this (rather large) middle-aged woman in a black shawl and a pearl necklace and I'm a skinny arts student so I gathered she was indeed more powerful than me. Sexyvoice told me to take note of what she was buying. Even though I was paranoid about being caught I managed to sneak about a dozen glances at her trolley, realizing that there was nothing in there I could use to identify her as a person. So when Sexyvoice asked me what kind of a person I thought she was my mind went blank. Assassin? Stand-up comedian? Teacher? Professional Lacrosse player? Who knows. Anyway I ditched her before she could get suspicious and was directed to the milk fridge.

Here you get to listen to a British guy talk about milking cows while you stare at all the bottled goodness on display. Sexyvoice told me to take one of the bottles out of the fridge, shake it up and put it back. I did so, feeling all the more rebellious because an employee was standing right next to me looking the other way. This is where it gets problematic, though, because Sexyvoice tells you to find the canned goods section and gives you at most ten seconds to do so. I was rushing around for about two minutes looking for them before I decided to settle on canned fruit and pretend it was the legumes Sexyvoice was drawling on about.

Nothing happens for a while following this. But then Sexyvoice tells you to pick up a product and consider stealing it. This is where you start to feel nervous because it asks you to look around and count all the staff members and CCTV cameras you can see. There were none in my aisle. Good job Safeway. I was eventually asked to put the product back (which in my case was some kind of disgusting-looking generic packet of biscuits next to the Oreos) and Sexyvoice told me I had one minute to put everything back and abandon the trolley. Because I ditched mine in the middle of an aisle I was pretty eager to get out of there before someone told me off.

At the of the day it's supposed to be an insight into people's buying habits and how supermarkets use this to psychologically manipulate people into buying their shit. For example, new products (such as disgusting-looking, generic packets of biscuits) are placed just to the right of popular brands (Oreos) so that when you go to pick up the Oreos your hand brushes the disgusting-looking generic packet of biscuits and that somehow gets you to buy it. I don't understand that at all - I'd rather just buy the thing I know from experience is good - but I guess I'm weird like that.

So there you go. I hope no one shoplifts today because if they check the security footage I'll be a prime suspect. Seriously - I must have looked like I got lost on the way to special education, putting things in my trolley and then putting them back, shaking things, following people, reaching as far as I could into the fridges to touch the back wall.

I'm glad it's over with.

The end.