This Is This

I went into the supermarket yesterday to get some milk, eggs, chocolate spread and a pumpkin/rice salad thing.

I have a supermarket credit card which gets me points. I resisted the loyalty card for years, but with a growing family I find I spend about £840 a week on groceries, so I have given in, in return for “free” trips to the zoo.

Conversation thus.

Me: I’d like cashback. Can I use this card?

Cashier: Sorry?

Me: It’s just that it’s a credit card and I’m not sure I can get cashback out with this.

Cashier: Oh, no you can’t.

Me: OK, I’ll use another card then.

Cashier: I can swipe the credit card in for the points, though.

Me: OK, great.

She swipes in the card and I put my debit card in front of her.

Me: I’ll pay on this one, please.

She nods and gives me back the credit card, rings up my groceries and swipes my debit card.

Cashier: Five pounds eighty five.

Me: I needed cash.

At this point she looks at me in blank rattlement.

Me: I said I needed cashback.

Cashier: Sorry, I’ve rung it up now.

Me: That was the whole conversation. About how I couldn’t get cashback on that other card?

Cashier: Oh.

Me: And that it was a credit card, so I said to use the debit card?

Cashier: Um. I didn’t hear you.

Me: But we had a whole conversation.

Cashier: Yeah, I didn’t hear.

Now.

What?

There were questions and answers. Confirmations. We made plans. You didn’t hear any of that?

I should have said, “So what do we do now?”

I should have suggested she scan the whole lot back in and put it back on my card, start again and do what we agreed, but there were people waiting and there was a cash machine right outside the supermarket.

I didn’t want to make more of a scene, because she probably went to school with my wife, but fucking hell, right?

After any given conversation, do I have to say “Did you hear any of that?”

Would it be patronising to recap dialogue that takes 20 seconds? Do we have to draw up action points?

Stupid staff is right up there on the annoying scale with someone turning the TV or radio almost all the way down so you can still hear it’s on but can’t make anything out.

Or Lenny Henry’s stupid fucking Jamaican/generic African accent. Let’s all do it, shall we? Oh no, we can’t, so fuck off with your double-standard racism. Triple, actually because Robin Williams can do a black voice on British TV, but Jim Davidson can’t, and rightly so.

In fact, everyone - no one’s doing the accent. No more accents from anyone. Apart from Welsh ones. Those guys talk so funny.

Also on This Is This
As we discussed the Electoral College vote and the likelihood of a stalemate, she kept glancing at the big smiley crocodile plaster on my thumb.
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This entry was posted on Friday, June 22nd, 2007 at 7:15 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed, or you can skip to the end and leave a comment yourself.