The day began well, coffee in bed and a chat about the latest news with my son, even Pa was up in good time . Breakfast was lovely and for the first time in ages uninterrupted by either the phone a delivery or the arrival of plumbers,etc.
My son's gaming group were meeting at the pub today and he went to change while I cleared the kitchen. One of the group who has been coming to the house for so long that he is considered as a member of the family arrived and soon after they left for the pub.
I had drawn the short straw and left soon after for Tesco, yes on a Saturday again,and yes I must be potty. I had received £10.00 worth of Tesco vouchers in the post and according to the bumf in the envelope this would be converted in to £20.00 if spent in specified items. Now we would normally get at least £20.00 worth of vouchers any way so I considered their seemingly generous gesture to be just another Tesco con! As it was the thing backfired royally as you shall now hear.
Having picked up the few items of grocery I needed I decided to buy a scarf, some gloves and some socks for Pa, £20.00 worth to be precise, this should have cost me nothing and I was not unhappy about that. The queues at the check out seemed much longer than usual and I noticed in passing that the queue at customer services was of preternatural length even for a Saturday. At almost every till there seemed to be a hold up and I was about to find out why.
After the assistant put my goods through the check out I handed her my club card and the vouchers,this is where the problems began. She told me, with great patience I mus t say, that I should have first exchanged them at the customer services desk.......which of course explained the massive queue. I was as usual on the buggy and there was no way I could get through the maze of barriers they have recently installed to control the queue. At this point a helpful young man appeared and said that he would change them for me and would I kindly wait at the end of the till for him to return.
I followed his instructions feeling rather stupid, but not for long. Almost every till had someone stick at the end of it waiting, like myself for assistance or returning to collect their goods having queued for ages, the place was choked with customers, most of whom were irritated, aggravated of just downright narked at being messed about. I heard one check out girl say that it was all explained on the T.V commercial......who in heavens name watched those. The security guards were pulling their hair ouand all the time the queues kept getting bigger. My young helper returned, having done a neat bit of queue jumping and I was given my goods and my change with a smile The lad deserved a medal for no sooner had he finished with me than he was sent to sort out a similar problem at another till, Many customers , having already queued for ages at the check out were refusing too queue at the customer services desk to exchange their vouchers and then queue again at the check out to pay for their goods.
I now realised why I had notice rather a lot of assistants wandering round with trolleys putting goods back of the shelves. What,s the betting they don't pull the same stunt next year.
Back at home, much later than O expected I was unpacking the shopping when my neighbour came round for a cup of tea. He is always welcome and we sat munching shortbread and drinking tea for about an hour. Panic set in after he left, it was three-o-clock and the roast lemon chicken was still in its wrapper and the lemons in the fruit bowl, Pa had not even started to feed the birds and we began to rush round like a couple of lunatics.
Dinner was a little late but other than that all was well, and the meal was lovely. Totally shattered Pa and I decided on an early night and so ended the day. Tomorrow will, I hope be rather more peaceful, still we all had a good laugh and that is worth all the trouble. Remind me to go to Morrison's next time!Oh by the way the young fellow in the photograph is named Crisp, he lives just over the road from our house and is a sweetie.
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