The first (and please God let them be the last eejits I run into today, however the triumph of experience over hope suggests there will be more!) candidate today is my local shop. "A shop?" you ask. "What can a shop have done to deserve your vitriol?" Allow me to explain...
As far as I am aware the concept of the average "friendly local shop" is that when you wake up in the morning and have run out of essentials i.e. bread, milk and cigarettes, you can take a leisurely if still half asleep stroll down to the "shop". When you arrive you select the produce you want and take it to the counter. This is where the contract of sale takes place (although this is some times disputed in law - another subject entirely, so for our purposes lets just say I am right - also lets say I am right because I am) the attendant rings it up "£8 please?" at which point you accept (whilst thinking that Gordon Brown is personally shafting you making you pay £5.00 a time for the risk of contracting any one of a seemingly endless list of diseases) by handing over the cash. The business is complete. You may exchange friendly parting words and off you go one "happy shopper" back home. We must go through this process hundreds of thousands of times in our lives right?
Not so at my local! Oh no! None of that "buying" things there!
I enter the shop still unsure whether I am awake or just having a very realistic but banal dream, I walk towards the milk, select a pint of semi-skimmed (not on a diet just prefer the taste), I go to pick up milk.
[M = me
SK = shop keeper and former member of the Hitler Youth Movement]
SK: "No I'm sorry! That's reserved!"
M: "Oh right" foolishly go for another bottle
SK: "No no, they're all reserved!"
M: puzzled look but still half smiling half laughing "All the milk is reserved?"
SK: "Yes!"
M: "Ok?" shaking of head move towards bread, select white loaf
SK: "I'm afraid that's reserved as well"
M: "The bread is reserved? What all of it or just this loaf?"
SK: "Well we do have a malt loaf left?"
M: "Malt loaf - malt loaf isn't bread, you're telling me all these loaves are reserved?"
SK: "Yes!"
M: I walk towards the counter "Can I have a packet of 20 Marlboro(*please see rant at bottom of posting all will be explained) please or are they all reserved too?"
SK: "No they're not reserved but I can't I'm sorry!"
M: "Can't what?"
SK: "Can't let you have the Marlboro!"
M: "Ok I know I'm going to regret this but why?"
SK: "Because they're locked in this saftey cabinet and the guy with the key isn't here yet!"
M: "Well will he be here soon?"
SK: "About ten-ish"
M: look at my watch it's 7am "Ok, so the milk's reserved, the bread is reserved and effectively you don't have any cigarettes..."
SK: "You can reserve something for tomorrow if you want?"
M: "No I don't want...I want the stuff now! Is there anything in this shit-hole that is actually "for sale" you know something that any poor unfortunate who happens to wander in here from the street mistaking it for a shop can buy without having to preorder it?"
SK: Blank look
M: "Super glue there behind you is that reserved?"
SK: "I'll check!"
M: much laughter "You'll check? What does all this stuff have names written on the back then?"
SK: surprised at my derision "No we have a book!" produces book
M: more laughter "Ah you have a book, of course you do! How thick am I?"
SK: "No the super glue is not reserved!"
M: "Good I'll take that please!"
SK: rings it up
M: realise super glue is not an essential unless you are into solvent abuse "Actually I've changed my mind!" walking out of shop
SK: "Thank you come again!"
M: hilarity "Realistically speaking I think the chances of that are slim to none! Unless I need super glue and then you will be my first port of call! I promise" Leave shop.
I SWEAR that is as it was!
"Ah hah!" I hear you cry, "but you laughed? How then can you want them shot?" I'll tell you.
Yes I did laugh, it was mildly amusing however what wasn't was...going home, having to get appropriately dressed (leathers which are a pain in the arse to get on at the best of times) to get on my bike (which had the full compliment of sparkplugs so it appears that while my crackhead tormentor does not own a crackpipe he does have access to MSN) ride down to Sainsbury's - now what is so bad about that? - it was now bang in the middle of rush hour, "not a problem on a bike" you say? I say shut up you're wrong, people (jealous car drivers lusting after your beautiful machine mainly) deliberately try to kill you (no I do not suffer with a persecution complex it is perfectly true). So once you've made your way through that you then have to deal with other shoppers, the other shoppers being neurotic mother's and their screaming, irritating "little darlings" and pensioners who have no problem with trying to take your ankles out with their trolley. Therefore a five minute "nip to the shop" trip turns into a shagging expedition lasting well over an hour! That is an hour of my life as a smoker I can ill afford to lose! Enough said I think.
(* rant from earlier: I smoke Marlboro. So when I ask for my packet I say "20 Marlboro please?", why then nine times out of ten do I watch the silly bint behind the counter strectch out her paw for the Marlboro Lights forcing me to reiterate "No the Red ones!" My cigarettes are called Marlboro, not Marlboro Red, yes they happen to be in a red box, what of it? If I wanted Marlboro Lights I would have specifically asked for them! Ok good, off my chest now - being a smoker I could do with the room after all.)
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