Wacky Wednesday at the Supermarket

I went to the shop on a Wednesday at three, And the very first thing that was wacky to me Was a chicken, all pink, wrapped in plastic and bright, That had bathed in some chlorine to keep it just right.

I said to the man who was stacking the shelf, "Excuse me, good sir, I was thinking myself — That chicken's been washed in a chemical rinse That Europe banned using a long while since. But here? It's quite normal. The standard. The way. And nobody puts that on labels today."

He shrugged and he stacked. He had cartons to fill. "Don't worry," he said. "It's the cheapest. The till Will beep and you'll pay and you won't ask me how The chicken became what's a chicken right now."

I counted one wacky. Then I counted some more. There were eggs in a carton marked COLONY on the floor. Not CAGE, mind you — CAGE is the word that's been banned — But COLONY hens live in cages, you'll find, Just slightly more roomy. The wording's been kind. The hens haven't noticed. The cages remain. The label just chose a more comforting name.

That's two wacky things. Then I spotted a third: A carton of eggs marked FREE RANGE. And the word Has no legal meaning. No standard. No size. A flock can be eight thousand hens (no surprise), And the picture in green of a hen on the grass May be true, or may not — there's no way to ask. The Fair Trading Act says you mustn't deceive, But the line of what's "free" is for brands to conceive.

Three wacky things. And the chicken came back — Not the bird in the plastic, but what's on the rack: The eggs that it laid (if a hen, not a he), And what did it eat? Well, that's wackiness four. For the soy in the feed comes from somewhere offshore, And much of that soy has been modified — GM — But the rules say a chicken that ate it's not them. The chicken's not GM. The egg's not GM. The feed was. But labels don't mention all that. The chicken is laundered. The egg is. The fat.

I counted up four. Then I wandered to bread. There were loaves full of seeds and the packages said WHOLEGRAIN and HEARTY and GOODNESS INSIDE, And much of the wheat had been shipped from outside — From over the Tasman, where farmers can spray A herbicide on it the week of the day That they harvest it down. And the limit they keep Is fifty times higher than ours. Pretty steep. But food that's allowed in Australia gets through, And the loaf doesn't say where the wheat in it grew.

That's five. I was tired. I leaned on a shelf. A woman beside me was helping herself To a packet of something marked NATURAL, PURE, And I wanted to ask her — was she really sure? — But she'd seen the word NATURAL. That settled it. Done. Her trolley was full and her shopping was won.

I bought me an apple. Just one. It was plain. It had come from a tree and had drunk only rain. It was certified organic. The sticker was small. It cost twice as much as the rest of them all. And the man at the till said, "An apple? Just one? You came in to buy just an apple? You're done?" And I said, "Yes. Just one. From a tree. In the sun."

He shrugged and he beeped it and put it in brown. And I walked back out into wacky old town.

With apologies to Theo. LeSieg, whose 1974 book Wacky Wednesday taught a generation of children to count the strange things hiding in plain sight. The wacky things in this one are all real, all legal, and all on a shelf near you.