SaiNO's

It was last week that my current experience of quirky events continued. I found myself in Sainsbury’s buying the week’s food supply. Some salad, an avocado, Quorn pieces, Doritos (with a hint of lime flavour) a couple bottles of red wine and some other odds and sods too mundane to mention. Everything seemed rather procedural and regular as you would expect on a frequent shopping excursion. However things changed when I found myself at express till Number 2. The till lady eyed me up reproachfully as I approached her and snatching at my items and scanning through before tossing them on the other side. She picked up my bottle of wine.

“Are you old enough, young man?”

To this lady I was a young man, maybe even baby faced assassin but it hasn’t been a good 5 years since someone questioned my credentials to purchase goods or enter premises reserved for the adult.

“Yeah, I’m old enough.”

“Show me your identification.”

Balls! Usually it never gets this far, I manage to smile and then grimace and people let me pass or buy. I begrudgingly pull out some ID and hand it over to her. She scrutinises it with her roaming beady eyes while I look up at the ever growing queue becoming ever so slightly agitated at the delay. She hands it back without looking at me and scans the two bottles of wine. Feeling slightly put out by her actions I quickly start packing up my goods before she looks up again.

“£18.78 please.”

I pull out my wallet, slide in my ID and then start searching for my debit card. At first it’s a casual perusal through pocket book but as I realise it’s not where it’s supposed to be I start searching through all the compartments before remembering that it’s in fact laying on top of my television. I manage to collate just over £11 in a note and some coins.

“Erm, I’m a bit short.”

“Please take away the things you don’t want. And hurry people are waiting.”

The only reason why they’re waiting is because you need some spectacles m’lady thinking I’m a Master instead of a Mr, I thought. I pull away the avocado and one bottle of wine.

“That’s £12.98”

“I’m still short”.

“Take away something else then.”

Now, I didn’t want to take away anything else. I wanted everything there in front of me and if I had to get rid of something I wanted it to be just under the £11 I had. However, those of you who know me are aware that on the spot mental arithmetic leaves me short of breath and in a state of panic. Standing there frozen and going slightly red I find my mind unable to process the numbers and instead unravelling the characters into letters that spell out the word ‘bitch’ in referral to the lady in front of me.

In my panic I pick up the avocado and shove it under her nose demanding she scans this as it’s the only thing I really want. Slight taken aback at my intrusion of her personal ‘till’ space she listens to my command. I snatch the avocado back and give her 50p for it before walking off and leaving the rest of my shopping scattered all over the place. Smiling that I, firstly, managed to not break into convulsions over a simple equation and secondly, wiping the smugness of the till lady’s face, I head towards the exit. As I reached the exit I feel a hand pull me back, I turn around to see a security guard asking to check my bags. And it’s not just any security guard it’s someone who was a year below me at school and despite the shirt and tie still looks like he’s just gotten out of bed. Although we recognise each other we don’t know each other and I’m glad I don’t know him as he proceeded to check my only shopping bag and my work bag right in front of the general public. I suspected either he saw my reaction as I was paying or the evil till lady pressed a button or something. Either way I wanted out of this place.

“Everything seems in order, thank you for your trouble sir.”

“What ever ball bags.”

And I leave.


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