I suffer from a delusion that keeps making me return to the supermarket middle aisle like a dog to its sick

Emer McLysaght Author and journalist

In Nobody Needs This, a series for The Journal, Emer McLysaght focuses her eagle eye on the trends, products and notions we can do without. It’s not all giving out, however. She’ll also be keeping up with what’s catching her attention, keeping people interested and, quite frankly, driving her mad.

IT HAPPENED AGAIN. 

I thought I had finally overcome it, but it happened again.

I had entered Lidl with a firm goal in mind. Get berries, bread and cat treats.

“Don’t go near the middle aisle,” I counselled myself.

“You don’t need a packet of 500 cable-ties or a leaf blower or a set of comically large ice cube trays. You absolutely don’t need the one thing that keeps drawing you back in: plastic tubs to decant your groceries into.”

And yet, there I was, my fingers hovering over a set of three nesting Perspex boxes, just begging to have crackers or biscuits or cereal poured into them in an effort to replicate an aesthetic I will never, ever achieve.

I was strong this time. I managed to back away from the storage tubs, bringing to mind the multiples I have fallen prey to before and are sitting in the kitchen presses at home, as empty as the day I bought them.

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I blame the Kardashians and their deranged pantries and geometric cookie jar formations.

I blame Nancy Meyers and the huge, fantastic homes of her movies, where her characters inhabit expensive, rustic kitchens and Diane Keaton would never dream of leaving cornflakes in their original packaging like an animal, or accept strawberries being placed in the fridge in a horrifying plastic carton.

I blame Duchess Meghan and her bid for lifestyle perfection in her Netflix series, which is really just episode after episode of her decanting foodstuffs from the jars they came in into different, artisanal jars. She calls it ‘elevating’ while reminding us that she’s just like us and never has time to make her own homemade hummus.

Mostly though, I blame myself. I blame the hours and hours of aspirational organisational content I’ve consumed on Instagram and TikTok, convincing myself that if I can just reorder my entire kitchen into rows of matching containers with calligraphed labels everything else in my life will sort itself out.

It is this delusion that has brought me back again and again like a dog to its sick to the middle aisle stackable tubs.

There’s a woman I watch on TikTok who has a drawer the size of a tennis court in her kitchen filled with dozens of identical tubs which in turn are filled with every kind of sweet and chocolate imaginable. Every week she refills the barely touched candy drawer, expecting us to believe that she’s able to sleep at night knowing there are peanut M&Ms and gummy bears just sitting in there, calling to her.

Why do we love containers so much? Maybe because they offer the promise or illusion of control.

My heartrate increases whenever I’m in IKEA and the lazy river of trolleys drags me into the storage section, which shimmers with every basket, tub, box and tin imaginable and some I could never have dreamed of.

While I’m there I can convince myself that If I could just purchase and strategise the perfect configuration of storage, I would be unstoppable.

However, I have failed on enough organisation ‘journeys’ to know when to step away from the stackable tubs.

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Imagine explaining to a Victorian child what we’re doing to our eyelids in 2026 in the name of beauty

Nobody needs to be decanting Rice Krispies and blueberries and dishwasher pods. Life is too short to beat yourself up because nothing in your fridge matches.

And remember, nobody needs a leaf blower. That’s what the wind is for.

Something to watch

If you loved Shipwrecked back in the day on E4, you’ll love Outlast: The Jungle, Netflix’s new survival show. Sixteen competitors are stranded in the Panamanian jungle, forming teams and stabbing backs in a bid to win a million dollars. It’s interesting for many reasons, especially the decision to expose the terrible, misogynistic behaviour of one of the teams. It really makes you wonder if some people truly forget they’re being filmed.

Something to avoid

Stephen Spielberg’s new film Disclosure Day is an absolute stinker. How has the director who made Jurassic Park using no CGI dinosaurs sunk to the level of laughably poor computer-generated foxes and deer and hysterically badly executed aliens in a $200m film?

It’s dull, messy, sappy and saved only by a recognisable John Williams score and the always enjoyable Emily Blunt.

Camping wins

I survived my second Beyond the Pale festival in a row last weekend and have to shout out two stellar purchases from last year which kept comfort at a maximum.

This heavy duty camping chair complete with a can cooler and this self-inflating bed which packs down into a tiny bag and is by far the best inflatable mattress I’ve ever
owned.

Worth reading

Rachel Richardson’s analysis of heartwarming World Cup content juxtaposed with Trump’s deranged 80th birthday party, on her Substack Highly Flammable.

Blasket Bound by Lesley Bond is the story of Bond and her partner Gordon taking on the roles of caretakers of Great Blasket Island for six months. It’s a gorgeous blend of memoir, history and nature writing.

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