A VISIT to M&S has given a woman a glimpse of what her particular circle of hell, where everyone is middle class, will be like.
Helen, not her real name, visited the store to pick up a few fresh items for her Boxing Day buffet only to find everyone else of her demographic had been carefully separated and released into the shop for a kind of polite Hunger Games.
She said: “It was a passive-aggressive riot of Next blouses and bookshop totes, and we were not taking prisoners.
“You only had to reach for a pyramid of salted caramel profiteroles to hear a disappointed ‘oh’ and look into the face of a crushed woman who only needed that final detail to please her in-laws, who were travelling all the way from Solihull.
“I didn’t relinquish my grip, explaining sweetly that of course I’d usually make my own but I was singing in a choir in the town square on Christmas Eve and we hoped to raise £13,000 for motor neurone disease.
“That round I won. But when she reached the mini pecorino and chorizo tortillas before me, she gave me such a look.
“I know now what hell will be. A frenzy of professional women sweeping the shelves of delectable items ironically termed ‘picky bits’, all seething, all silent, all with SUVs outside. And when the bill comes it will be £137.82 for barely two bags’ worth.”