Saturday morning shopping and a mild outbreak of till rage. But there are two, possibly three versions of what went on. I can offer one and guess at the second but must remain silent on the third, if third there is.
We had two full baskets. The woman in front had a similar number of purchases already laid out on the belt and turned to raise her eyebrows in exasperation as she allowed an elderly woman to pass ahead of her with a solitary packet of butter.
Then as her turn, delayed by seconds, arrived, she apologised and disappeared into the aisles for some forgotten item.
The cashier practically ordered us to hand over our baskets to her. She had processed nearly every purchase by the time the woman returned and saw to her intense annoyance that we had taken her place.
"That's my reward for doing that woman a favour," she said, confusing two unrelated events, before proceeding to waste more time arguing than she had lost by being overtaken, at the cashier's fairly understandable insistence, by us.
The insignificance of the delay to the poor woman's shopping was further illustrated by her arrival immediately behind us in the queue at the parking pay machine. Fumbling for my ticket, I let her go first, adding a light-hearted reference to tables being turned which she did not altogether appreciate.
The verbal skirmishes of the till resumed. The cashier had told her we practically screamed at her to be served straight away. I said this sounded as improbable as it was untrue. She invoked her son's life and imagined that I was calling her a liar, reversing the chronological order to add that I had "really upset" her by suggesting she was being untruthful on that offspring's very existence.
You can by now guess the changes she would make to the above account. And I'd like to hear the cashier's. But on the off chance that my till rage adversary is looking in, I can re-make her day: a quick look at the bill shows that Tesco failed to give me the £1 off a jar of coffee that the voucher, duly handed in, entitled me to.
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