THE MODERN SHOPPING LIST

He looked at it, carefully holding it in his hands. Now he was certain, it was indeed The Guide, as ordered by his instigator. He was paid abundantly and the businessman managed to open his supermarket thanks to the instructions he just received. From that day on, the list jumped from hand to hand, spreading like wildfire and undergoing wide variations among the many mongers, especially among the carrelliani (1), who supported the use of the trolley, and the scatoliani (2), who had kept loyal to Lehmm's ancient practice of using boxes for shopping. The latter, while precisely grasping the workings of the supermarket, were only moving further and further away from its inimitable primordial beauty, as it had originally been conceived by Il Grande Aukan. The values it was born with were also being lost over time: the greediest were waiting to open their businesses with the sole aim of maximising profit, without any regards for anyone. At this point, everyone was thinking only for themselves and the human interactions that had been typical of the old shops and craft centres were disappearing. The small shopkeepers had become unscrupulous businessmen, willing to put aside their humanity to see their business empires grow. Unbridled competition reigned supreme. 

Throughout history, numerous figures realised how wrong this path was because of the consequences that were rising. Amongst them, Julius Cheddare planned to proclaim himself CEO of all the supermarkets of the Empire, to bring them under his control and unite them under one name, to stop the feuds. This idea, against the tradition of the Republic, did not please the Senators who, fearing an excessive centralisation of the power, planned a conspiracy against him. For this reason, while at the Senate's much-longed-for buffet of matured cheese, they turned against the emperor, who was stabbed with the parmesan knives served on the chopping boards. 

After his death, the economic clashes caused by competition from supermarkets revived, so much so that they spoiled customer relations. In Salt King's Frarancia, people complained about the exorbitant increase in pasta prices, particularly those from the Bahrilla brand. To make amends for the serious social and economic crisis that had arisen, the King convened the Estates General, but the meetings ended with the needs of the wealthier classes prevailing, even though they could perfectly afford those spending habits. As a result of that fruitless outcome, tensions increased and people, hungry and furious, stormed the most important pasta warehouse in the state to feed themselves. The insurrection went down in history as the Seizure of the Bahrilla and started the Frarancese Revolution.

More years passed and Karl Mutty, a leading figure in the field of sociology, came up with an enlightening theory, according to which the competition between supermarkets, which he considered harmful and destructive, together with the radical division between scatoliani and carrelliani, had to be overcome through a joint collaboration between the two for the well-being of society. His far-sighted reasoning challenged the most illustrious figures in trade at the time, which brought him various reactions, some of support and some of outrage. His words gave rise to a new current of thought, which in the course of the following decades led to lively debates, meetings between the upper echelons of management and attempts at intermediation between brands and chains, which didn’t result in anything substantial. In this tense climate, the artist Marcello Du Champagne, inspired by Mutty's theories, gave life to a work that was both provocative and thoughtful: named "basket", it resembled a box in its shape, yet the wheels were those of a shopping cart. This innovation was reached with merciless criticism, for was seen as an outrageous insult at what had been the dichotomy in force for centuries between the two philosophies of sales and belief; however, some entrepreneurs found its "social scratch" ingenious and adopted it as a further option for the shopping experience. Thus, the new Duchampian "basket" model was introduced in some visionary supermarkets, as many saw it as a confident avant-garde compromise. The conservative cart elite, however, concerned by this new trend that diminished the importance previously attributed to the cart, formed the Great Council of Carrelliani, a hierarchical, business-like organisation that planned to devise effective strategies to restore the use of shopping carts according to suggestion, as things were originally meant to be.

Over the decades, the Great Council gained more and more power and influence, and an evil force lay hidden among the members: all attempts aimed at bringing the cart as the primary element of the shopping experience represented nothing more than the unconscious materialistic goal of the owners of such supermarkets to overpower scatoliani and the new futurist movement of cestiniani (3), thus losing sight of the deeper, more divine, mystical value of the cart, which originally appeared to the first two carrelliani, Pinolo and Mascarpone. Hostility and arrogance at the top only made the situation worse. The world needed to change.

One spring morning in the fifth year of the seasoned cheese, a humble boy named Jeihjeih, a direct descendant of Mascarpone and an inhabitant of the large metropolis of Milananas, got up early to do his studies. Upon opening the pantry to look for his cereal to have breakfast, he realised that it was not there. So, forced by circumstances, he went to the nearest supermarket which, coincidentally, had newly opened. He went inside and, after finding his way around, he looked for the most suitable aisle. He immediately launched himself towards a box of his favourite cereal brand, when out of the corner of his eye he noticed something even more eye-catching: biscuits with the shape of an emu, his favourite animal. Intrigued, he couldn't help but pick them up and take them home. When he opened the box, he saw them and they looked even better than the picture on the outside. He was about to bite into one, when he noticed an inscription on the bottom, which read:

"The shopping cart has always symbolised abundance".

It bore a signature, "Il Grande Aukan". He couldn't make any sense of it but he could tell for sure that that label had been tacked in there last minute. In fact, it was crooked and in a very unusual position for well-made packaging. He tried to better understand what it could mean and remembered what he had studied in his school years and how carts had always played a central role in history, through thick and thin, as well as the theories of Karl Mutty, of whom he was a follower. Feeling inspired, he left the house with his new purchase and went to the library to learn more. There were very few books on the subject and it was not easy to find direct accounts of the birth of supermarkets.

He spent entire nights among those shelves and delved into the experiences of the two ancient people who had found the first supermarket, already filled with all the necessary goods, which had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. He continued reading and digging into the story of a greedy entrepreneur, the birth of the first monopoly, then the duopoly and finally the perfect competition. The supermarket, in light of that new information, no longer seemed like a mere place to shop, but rather a divine gift, sent by who knows what superior entity. But all those events, which he already knew about, had only caused problems that had not yet been solved. Why should the carts have represented permanent abundance in such a context? There was no answer for that. He grasped his phone and looked for the only person who could have helped him: Gjehm, his friend who was passionate about philosophy and Eastern religions, who could perhaps have read the meaning behind that cryptic message. Gjehm answered after a few rings and Jeihjeih asked him the coveted question, without going too much into detail. His question was met with a short silence, and then Gjiehm answered:

"Perhaps those words shouldn’t be taken literally, but could represent a metaphor."

Jeihjeih lit up: the cart they were talking about actually had a deeper meaning. What could permanent abundance be, if not the salvation of the human race? Had it been achieved, people could have done without supermarkets and lived off the wealth offered by Il Grande Aukan, brought, of course, by a shopping cart. But something was still missing: why had the prophecy not yet been fulfilled? Perhaps that deity was waiting for a specific moment to arrive? Then Jeihjeih understood: he remembered everything he had studied and all the events that had taken place in history. The reason why permanent abundance had not been achieved yet was that humanity had to earn it, by ceasing its most greedy and selfish instincts, triggered by the very first supermarket. The only way to do this was to join forces and overcome blind competition by merging all supermarkets under one name, as if it were the first. Only this way would the shopping cart prophecy be fulfilled.

(1) Carrelliani: Worshippers of Il Grande Aukan and carts. The term “carrelliano” originates from the Italian equivalent to the word “cart”, that is, “carrello”.

(2) Scatoliani: Believers in the box transportation method. They are against the use of carts. Their method was introduced by the ancestors of Lhemm. The word “scatoliano” stems from the Italian “scatola”, a box.

(3) Cestiniani: Innovators, worshippers of a transportation method halfway through carts and boxes, that is, the basket (“cestino” in Italian). This method was introduced by Marcello Du Champagne.