I suspect by now that Christmas is a thing of the past and the telly is full of adverts with smiling people on beaches with perfect children.
However, let me take you back a few weeks to the time I am currently writing this article. Midway through Christmas shopping, devoid of inspiration, losing the will to live and having just made the fatal mistake of trying to save a bit of time by whizzing through the self-service till at my well-known high street chemist. A basket full of stocking fillers (mini hand creams and festive bath bombs), treats (expensive shower crème and branded perfume), Christmas essentials (cold and flu tablets, paracetamols, tissues), and necessities (you know what I mean, ladies) to be quickly scanned into my bag and off we pop.
Oh, how wrong can a girl be? Unexpected item in the bagging area. The words strike fear into me. Do you need to purchase a bag? No, I have my own. Unexpected item in the bagging area. Yes, that’ll be my bag. Please remove item and await assistance. I do as I’m told and wait with the queue growing behind me. At a trot arrives a heavily made up assistant with trendy scruffy hair, who glances wearily at the obviously inept middle-aged woman, taps a lengthy security number into machine with inch-long finger nails and departs.
Ok, deep breath. Do I need a bag? No, I have one. Unexpected item in the bagging area. Right, so I’m expected to scan everything, pile it up Jenga-style, pay for it, then pack it all into my own bag for life which, at this rate, may well have committed suicide by then anyway. Please await assistance.
The queue behind me – efficient office workers grabbing haloumi salads on their way to their lunchtime gym sessions – are losing patience and clearly wondering why the blithering idiot at the front picks lunchtime to do her shopping when she could do it any time as she clearly doesn’t do anything else. The blithering idiot at the front is now being rebooted for the second time by talon-fingered, scruffy, plastered-face assistant and, rather than keeping cool under pressure, is breaking out into a sweat (that’ll be her age) and beginning to wish the ground would open up.
Right, one more go. Unexpected item in the bagging area. AHHHHHHHH! IT’S A BAG – THE CLUE IS IN THE NAME!!!!! Right here is an unexpected item in the bagging area – my basket of shopping – you can keep it! With a flurry second only to Margo Leadbetter and John Cleese combined, I turned to the now exasperated queue and announced: “It cannot be this difficult to buy tampons!”
Happy New Year!