RANDOM JOTTINGS

Calloo Callay o frabjous day, I am upright once more!  Climbed crab like into bed last night after red hot bath, what felt like horse liniment rubbed in to the offending part of anatomy (brought tears to the eyes I can tell you) and hot water bottle also strapped on said part.  Went to sleep feeling as if I was in a sauna but when I woke up this morning and cautiously moved in bed found to my utter relief that the shooting pain of the weekend had vanished.  OK so I feel as if somebody has kicked me violently in the back and I am gently aching, but oh the sheer joy of being able to stand up straight.  Am at home for the day though as I do not wish to sit on the low slung seats of my commute train until the back has had another 24 hours rest.

I decided to have a lazy day reading newspapers and to that end took a gentle drive up to my local Co-op supermarket and duly loaded up with three or four.  This is a luxury I never have time to indulge in so was looking forward to curling up on sofa and working my way through them.  Bought a few other sundries and duly got in check out queue.  Now at the Co-op before you are allowed to purchase any booze or fags or buy a lottery ticket you have to press a red buzzer at the check out to say you are over 21.  As the average age of the users of this particular supermarket appears to be in the 70s this is a tad redundant but rules is rules.  A gentleman of advanced years in front of me had a bottle of Merlot and when asked to duly press the buzzer did so with an air of pained resignation. Well, the button did not work. So the young man at the check out (who appeared to be about 12 but obviously I must be wrong) asked him to press it again. 

Still, no result. ‘Well sir, I am afraid I cannot allow you to purchase this bottle of wine because I have no proof you are over 21’.  As the gentleman in question looked like he was about to clout him with his walking stick this brought about an outbreak of unbridled mirth.  ‘Why don’t you try bashing it?’ I asked.  ‘I usually kick the photocopier at my office and it works every time’  this was greeted with total horror by youth and then another customer chimed in ‘oh go on darling give it a thump’  youth retorted that he could not do that and he would have to call his ‘supervisor’  Queue had lengthened by this time and as my back had now started to play up again, I sat down on a chair and awaited the outcome.  Lengthy discussion on intercom about said problem and a few minutes later the supervisor arrived.  She also looked about12.  Youth told her of problem and, wait for it, I kid you not, she looked at him and said:

‘Have you tried bashing it?’

I will draw a veil over the reaction of the customers except that by the time we reached the car park we had managed to wipe the tears out of our eyes and our hysteria had abated somewhat.

This totally made my day and I came back home in a really happy mood.  Coffee made, papers to hand and constant checking on computer to see how we are doing in the cricket.  As I feared, the West Indies are fighting back and we are in danger of that old snatching defeat from the jaws of victory thing again.  In theory the Windies have to get 107 runs to win and we have to get 3 wickets.  So we should do it.

One hour later:  West Indies now only have to get 79 runs to win

Ahem…