The OAP Maroon 5 Appreciation Society

Today's blog takes place in a supermarket! And not in a kind of Romantic Comedy, bumping of the trolleys and picking up the same box of shredded wheat type way.

I was in TESCOs yesterday with my Dad and we were playing the 'browse the selection of rubbish CDs and make jokes about how we were definitely going to buy the Jedward album' game. This was going heartily, my dad had just pointed out One Direction's wonderful selection of tracks (coughsarcasmcough) and I was groaning for my entire generation, when suddenly, up waddles this old woman.

Now, a lot of people think I'm exaggerating when I say old. They think I mean old like my parents kind of old. The old that you use on 40th birthdays as a sort of dry joke about reaching the era that is being middle-aged. But I don't. I mean old. She had her glasses on a chain, she had a hunch- a hunch. Her hands shook when she removed them from her trolley.

I now require you to use your imagination for this situation, and whatever is typed, I may ask you to picture the voices of the certain people involved. And just for added fun, I've laid it out in script format, should any TV executives wish to make a dramatised version of this mind-boggling spectacle.

Old Woman: (elderly, shaky voice, typical of Downton Abbey') Excuse me, love (she puts her hand Dad's arm in a grandmotherly fashion) Do you know who the song 'Looks Like Jagger' is by?

Dad looks momentarily taken aback, but expertly hides a smirk and gathers himself. 


Dad: (English, middle-aged cool-Dad type voice) I think you mean 'Moves Like Jagger'?

Old Woman: Oh yes, who sings that?

I bite my lip and stare at a packet of apples in our trolley, trying not to show any emotion. Dad and I exchange looks. 


Dad: (grinning) That's by Maroon 5. (He searches the CDs, picks one out, hands it to her and points to the song on the track listing) Yes, here it is, Moves Like Jagger. (Pause) Can I ask, is it for you, or for someone else?

Old Woman: (Cool as a cucumber) Yes it's for me.  I want to Move Like Jagger. It's for my (voice lowers to a whisper, leans in to my Dad) Zumba class.

Both me and my Dad are at this point seriously trying not to laugh. 


Dad: Well I hope you enjoy it!

Old Woman: Thank you, you're a gem. I'll be flying down these aisles in no time!

Old Woman waddles off at true pensioner speed. We both watch eagerly as she turns the corner and then we burst out laughing. 


Dad: That was brilliant!

Don't you just love people? They are so fantastically barmy that you wonder how the world manages not fall into chaos. Now whether we were set up on some hidden camera show, or whether there is genuinely an OAP Maroon 5 Zumba appreciation society I'll never know. But it made me smile.

So today's song obviously is....

(and you better be picturing elderly women busting moves to it)