Bunnings is an Australian institution, in case you were wondering. It's a super store where you can buy anything from lemon trees to tie down ropes, mushroom growing kits to sheets of plywood, lighting, paint, and so on. It has replaced smaller hardware shops and with it's competitive prices, most of us find themselves in there at least once a fortnight. Screws. Caulk. Batteries. Compost. Doormats. Pulleys. You name it, they've got it.

^{Our Series Land Rover at Bunnings}

Now I've set the scene, imagine this - I'm slowly walking up a middle aisle, on the right hand side, with shopping items up the centre aisle - kinda like an Aldi scenario. I'm on the right hand side because I'm looking down the right aisles for letterboxes - ours is mouldy and old and I want to create a good first impression when people come to look at the house.

There is a couple in front of me - they are large, big boned, and Chinese. Nationality should not matter, and maybe it doesn't, and I am the absolute asshole. I only say this because perhaps what happened next was tied to a cultural misunderstanding, because I've never encountered anything like it before in my life. I might as that size shouldn't matter either, but given how they were using it to physically intimate me, I think it's relevant. And before you ask: 'how do you know they were Chinese, you racist asshole?', I used to teach international students from mainland China, and all over Asia, so I know, okay? Leave me alone.

I'm walking super slowly as they are too - and I'm chilling leaning on the big trolley looking down the aisles. A little drifty, because I've done a helluva lot of life admin this morning and my mind's preoccupied. Suddenly, she stops in front of me, and me, not estimating the length of the bottom half of the trolley and not really realising she'd stopped to the last minute, bumped her ankle. It wasn't hard - the kinda tap where you'd go 'ouch' and maybe 'fuck' and glare at the person who did it. She glared at me, then looked at her ankle, and wouldn't look at me when I said - 'shit, sorry', as you do. Because she wouldn't engage with me, I kept going - I mean, what else do you do? It was the tiniest trolley tap and I doubted very much she was crippled for life or that I needed to call emergency services.

Anyway, I find the letterboxes and next thing he's right in front of me shouting (with a very heavy Chinese accent, which again is irrelevant except for it's a little hard to understand what he's saying, let alone believe he's attacking me like this):

'YOU HIT MY GIRLFRIEND WITH THE TROLLEY! WHAT DO YOU SAY!'

Now, when someone is shouting, one gets on the defensive, and since I've already apologised, and she's clearly not dying and it was an accident - and hey, who hasn't been ankle clipped by a trolley? - I just repeat myself, slightly annoyed. 'I said it was an accident, mate, and I said sorry'.

Now he air punches right in front of my face, as if he's about to punch me. I've got the trolley in front of me and him so it's not a real punch, and he's just doing it to demonstrate a point. As I said, he's a big guy so without the trolley between us, he would have been even more threatening.

'IF I PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE, AND YOU SAY SORRY, IS THAT OKAY?'

Okay, dude. I'm rolling my eyes at this point - it's ridiculous. I don't believe in continuously saying sorry. Once you've said it, job done. 'Mate, I said sorry, and that's not the same thing - and it was an accident. What do you actually want from me?".

'I DIDN'T HEAR YOU' shouts his girlfriend.

At this point I'm in no mood to placate the woman, so I just shrug and say 'I'm sorry about your hearing', which might be kinda rude, but again, I'm at a loss here - what do they want me to actually do? He's still air punching and she's pretending to limp around like I fully rammed her, which I absolutely didn't. There's no mark, no blood, and I suspect they are playing roles - her, the girlfriend that needs attention, and him, the boyfriend that is coming to her defence, a Bunnings hero that will go to any lengths to protect his maiden.

I'm running through things in my head as he's still air punching and repeating his point, like maybe calling security, and is this really what people do? Is it a cultural thing? What am I missing? What did they want from me?

Anyway at this point I'm not giving them anything - I honestly don't think there is anything I"m legally required to do for something that was just an accident. So I move around them, say 'whatever' in a super childish way that probably is a good enough retaliation from the drama I'm being assaulted with.

'SHAME ON YOU! YOU ARE GOING TO HELL!' he shouts.

Sadly, a few minutes later I have to turn around because I'm getting something from the other end of the store, so I head back on the left side of the right aisle, like a normal human being at Bunnings. People flow past each other with trolleys, kids, dogs - we shift to accommodate each other.

Suddenly they are there, intimidating, and blocking my forward motion. Awkward.

^{Jamie with a Bunnings puchase}

'Excuse me', I said. I'm angling my trolley wheels a little to left just in case I have to go down the other aisle, but I think - jesus, no way, I'm within my rights.

'You - that way' she says. 'We not moving for YOU!'

'No,' I say, and this is the bit I'm probably an asshole for - 'Im not sure you realize how this works, in Australia, we keep to the left'. I cringe a little, but seriously, I'm in mega defensive mode at this point and absolutely incredulous these two are having a massive go at me.

And it's true. That's what we do at this Australian institution called Bunnings. We smile at each other, eat sausages from the sausage sizzle out front, walk to our cars with laundry baskets, plant pots, lengths of wood and drills, ready for weekends of DIY in a shared national past time of maintaining our houses and hobbies fed by Bunnings. It's absolutely nothing to do with where you're from, but the fact that you live in Australia and are happy to shop at the green and red store that supplies all your hardware needs and more, because as the byline goes, 'the lowest prices are just the beginning'.

A woman who witnesses this looks at me sympathetically. Clearly, she thinks they're being totally unreasonable.

I stand my ground. They loom over me and glare at the she-demon who bumped the girl-heros ankle.

Seconds pass.

Finally, he steps aside.

What do you think?

Am I the asshole?

With Love,

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