Sometimes, when you live in the Hutt, you have to be hard as. No nonsense. Rough as guts. This is one of those times.<\/p>\n
The black SUV circles the parking lot, then circles again, the driver spewing profanities. Finally, it wedges into a space and disgorges its passengers.\u00c2\u00a0 One, two, three tough-looking blokes, in stubbies and cut-off tees, emerge. Other groups eye them up warily. The ringleader steps down and flicks sunglasses away.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You know the plan, mates.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
One of the blokes eyes a queue on the sidewalk and asks, wistfully, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we get a free snarler first?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No-ooo!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Helena Hutt shrieks. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Look at that line, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not six years old at the kindy fair. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bloody Christmas Club day and the sooner we get in and get groceries, the sooner we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re out. Oooh! Grab that cart!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Inside the grocery store, a sweaty blonde wearing angel wings and halo hands them a list of the evening\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s specials, For Christmas Club Members Only. \u00c2\u00a0The specials are sincerely good, and through the customers’ weekly Christmas Club payments, it feels like the groceries are “free.”\u00c2\u00a0 This puts the shoppers into a carnivalesque frenzy, buying as if groceries won’t exist tomorrow. Their broods are hopped up on free-sample lollies. Towering couples cram their trolleys to the brim and above with crates of wine and beer, whole hams, five-pound bags of candy, and cheesecakes on special (limit 4 per customer). It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like shopping in the Land of the Giants. \u00c2\u00a0Small, round Helena is certain that families plan it that way. “Right, we’ll send Uncle Sid, he used to play rugby back, and is your Sharon still working security at that bar? If she goes with him then we’ve got a solid offensive action and a fighting chance at a full case of the sparkling wine.”<\/p>\n
Helena has fought fire with fire, recruiting her husband and his brothers as muscle. Once they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re through the all-important wine and beer section, she lets the blokes go free-range. One of them suddenly decides to do all his Christmas shopping. The other one is collecting every free sample going, whether he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll use them or not \u00e2\u20ac\u201c \u00c2\u00a0packets of pomegranate granola, sanitary pads, and cat food find their way into his stubbie pockets. She doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t protest. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll need the rations to survive the epic check-out line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometimes, when you live in the Hutt, you have to be hard as. No nonsense. Rough as guts. This is one of those times. The black SUV circles the parking lot, then circles again, the driver spewing profanities. Finally, it wedges into a space and disgorges its passengers.\u00c2\u00a0 One, two, three tough-looking blokes, in stubbies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[37,17,78,7],"class_list":["post-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shortfic","tag-food","tag-helena","tag-holidays","tag-hutt-valley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}