Shopping

I am a regular visitor to my local Lidl. I enjoy the buzz that the store brings, the folk you meet, the occasional drunk going there for some cheap spirit from Bavaria or meths to us, the variety of specials they provide etc. One slight thing bothers me though. When I get to the counter the person at the checkout whizzes my stuff through the scanner at break-neck speed. I am left rummaging in my pockets for the re-useable bags I brought with me and tossing my shopping into the trolley trying not to throw the spam tins on top of the Toss-Man-Fix-Kit-The Red Baron Aeroplane I so much look forward to constructing later. Flustered I try and keep up, however after managing to get less than 5 things in the trolley the cashier calls out, £11.16 please!


Bugger, right stop that and frantically find some money. Right it’s not in my jeans pockets, shirt pocket, where could it be? Where the fuck is it!? Shit it’s gone down the hole in my coat pocket, into the lining, and round the back.

My face is twisted twice as much as my body as I try and reach in to the depths of my inner coat to find the holy £10 and change required. After several moments of extreme panic and sweating like a nodding dog I emerge with a handful of rubbish: old lottery ticket playboard, bit of paper with a phone number on it, sweet wrappers(still sticky), bits of fluff(stuck to the sweet wrappers and now my hand) and at last a crumpled up £10 note with a pound coin and other coins wrapped up inside it just like Fagan would. I hand over the money to the peeved cashier and she counts it. It’s £11.16! Youv’e given me £11.12 your 4 pence short. Bollocks now what do I do? Look for the other coins again or hand something back. Dilemma time, well perhaps I could forsake the post-it notes, but no these are useful, it should be the beer, no not the beer, I need it after all this trauma. No if anything it should be the sardines, settled then.

Now then. They don’t like the fuss involved with returning stuff. So far then, as well as being rushed through the check-out like I was a leper, and demanded payment whilst the man behind me was pushing his trolley into the back of my knees, because he was on his stupid fucking handsfree headset talking to some bloke called Gavin about selling pies. I was trying my utmost to remain upright whilst performing a Houdini style manoeuvre to get the money and then after being only 4p short I had to sacrifice a meal for 2, then being frowned at because the cashier had to ring for the supervisor to offer the return!

I arrived home flustered after walking the 20 yards to my door with a hundred weight of cheap goods (it’s amazing how far £11.16 goes in Lidl), sort it out, open a beer and set about the Toss-Man-Fix-Kit-The Red Baron Aeroplane, only the instructions are all in German, Polish, Russian and French but no English. I knew I should have bought the Spitfire instead.