In my peripheral vision, I espied a familiar blur of primary colours standing out amid the generally earthy hues of Central Sydney. I turned and headed in its direction.
In 100 metres, I would be visually, sensorially, and financially fucked in every way possible.
As I stepped foot into Australia’s top warzone of consumerist freakery, a fusion scent of chemicals and greed infiltrated the air around me. A familiar unease crept up on me and gripped my senses.
First things first, sanitary pads.
I first encountered this rainbow paralysis when I moved to Australia last July. Yet, even after almost a year, my nervous system still fell victim to the haphazard frenzy of this pharmaceutical exile… or rather, Chemist fucking Warehouse. Every footstep I took depleted me, stripping away any remnants of my already wavering sanity. I’d reached what felt like the bleakest point of my existence: A Chemist Warehouse Victim in Desperate Need for Self Care Products but More Importantly Xanax Pills.
$10.00 $11.10 $9.55… I brushed past the neon post-it toned price tags that had their bold, striking numbers protruding jarringly from the shelves around me. It was as if these price tags harboured the power to morph into the CEOs of CeraVe and Cetaphil at any given moment. Then they’d reduce me to my weakest form, sending me into the frantic hellhole of agonising over which brand to buy from and the inevitable doom of consumer coercion.
The pharmacy prided itself in offering cheap prices and discounts. Ultimately, though, this was a manipulation tactic to lure customers into the trap of buying more products, all under the guise of Rachel from the FASS1000 tutorial telling them to get hair care products from Chemist because “Girl at least it’s cheap!”.
“Do you guys sell this product?”
“I’ll get back to you.”
“Bro where is the shampoo?”
“Dunno, should be somewhere here.”
“Are these perfumes authentic???”
As if the endless buzz of conversations around me wasn’t enough, one of Taylor Swift’s 82718 break up songs played on the radio while my AirPods blasted Just Dance by Lady Gaga in a bid to elevate the downfall of my senses. This only had me plummeting even deeper into my sensorial decline — the fluctuating wavelengths and frequencies of peoples’ voices entwined with the stark contrast between You Go Girl 2000s music versus Jake Gellyenhaal yearning crippled my eardrums. I was stuck in a haze of auditory degradation that ignited a mental implosion and had a ripple effect on my sweat glands and brain chemicals. I’d never been a fan of noise cancelling products but in moments like these I wished I was.
For a store constantly teeming with customers, I sensed an unspoken fatphobic prejudice in the narrowness of the store’s aisles as I squeezed my way through fellow victims. It was as if this sadistic pharmacy wanted customers squirming through the aisles the same way gym bro protein powder brands fought for space in the relentlessly expanding market of Toxic Masculinity™.
As I trudged closer to the creams and moisturisers section, my occipital cortex screamed at me, imploring me to flee the crushing mental and physical turmoil of sensory overload.
Fuck!!!!!!!!!!! Get me out!!!!!!!!
Wait….but I do need my sanitary pads…and shampoo…and skincare…
Fuck it, I’ll just go to Priceline instead.
Sanitary and sanity definitely didn’t go hand in hand at Chemist.
