Comprehension

The other day I had to go to the supermarket for to buy my daily bread, thus I found myself in Sainsbury’s at ten past eight in the morning. I needed bread and bread alone, so due to the impending rush-hour I wished, quite naturally, to make my purchase and leave as-soon-as-possible. Having swiftly completed my selection, I made straight for the Basket Only till (you may have these where you live – sort of like express lanes for busy shoppers who wish to effect minimal purchases: they’re slightly smaller cashier stations, situated under large signs clearly marked Basket Only or occasionally the less grammatically correct 10 Items or Less). So imagine my surprise when, upon joining the queue at the only open Basket Only till, I found myself in third place, behind a couple of women. Each with their own trolley.

Hold-on a minute (I can almost hear you interject) didn’t you say that you were at the Basket Only till? Well yes, I was, but it appears that what the sign actually means is:

This till is for busy customers with smaller items, numbering ten or fewer. Unless you feel it’s not busy. If, in your opinion, there is no sign of anyone in a hurry, please feel free to unload your weekly shop onto this deliberately under-sized conveyor belt and chat with the check-out girl who probably should have reminded you about the existence of the other, slightly more appropriately-sized tills which are situated just a few feet further away from the main doors. If, like you, the cashier only saw a geezer clutching a solitary loaf of bread, dressed in running-shorts with smoke drifting up from the soles of his trainers, she will have reached the same conclusion (thus increasing your righteousness by the power of infinity) that it probably doesn’t matter. By the way, in addition to this, should you happen to see another customer at the Basket Only till who is already in the process of unloading their over-filled trolley, that makes it doubly OK for you to do the same.

I suppose you think that’s over now because I’ve started a new paragraph. Oh no it isn’t. Closer inspection of the special, magical, practically-invisible, small-print revealed a further addendum:

If, out of your trolley-load of groceries, there are a couple of items for your friend Samantha, who’s coming for coffee later on, don’t forget there’ll be less chance of an argument over who paid for what if you settle-up for those items separately.

Now that would have been that, had it not been for the icing on the cake. It’s a pretty fancy cake already, you cry. I know, but what do you think happened next?

Around about the time she was printing-off the additional receipt for the second trolley wielding customer, the check-out girl seemed to work-out that maybe this minor abuse of the Basket Only / Express Checkout / 10 Items or Less system had impacted upon my ability to buy a loaf of bread and get home before the roads got really busy. She half-turned in my general direction and managed to say: “Sorry about this.”

Before I had a chance to respond, the woman in front of me said “Not to worry,” and without looking-up from the purse she was stuffing her change into, assured the cashier it was: “No problem at all.” At that point I did a physical, straight-out-of-a-cartoon, double-take while my predecessor calmly walked out to the car park (presumably to the 4x4 people carrier that she’d had to park across six Disabled spaces because it was “a bit tight” getting in).

Signs – who reads ‘em?