i am sparticus: Advice For Women

Advice For Women

You remember in Rupert the Bear where under every picture they have one short rhyming caption and then one long paragraph explaining things in a slightly more lucid way? Imagine that but with the order reversed. And no pictures of strange animals in checked clothing. And no odd mixed-species relationships.

The following two accounts are based upon actual events that really transpired. Names and places haven't been changed because the only names I know involved in this story are Sainsbury's and Mark Walley and neither of them are going to complain about the free publicity.

I was in Sainsbury's today buying stuff (milkshake ingredients for my drop-in centre if you must know) and had just started with the whole standing in a queue business. Now in case you don't know my ability to pick the wrong queue in a supermarket is legendary, if I even think about picking the shortest queue, even for a second, then whatever queue I choose will end up the longest. This isn't one of those crumby 'it only works if I don't mention it to people' things either, I can tell this to the people I'm with as I pick the queue and it'll still end up the longest; it's a knack.

Anyway that's almost an aside to the story except to say that there was only one woman in front of me who was just buying stuff for lunch so it she should have been through quickly but knowing who I was I expected some exciting complication to occur any second. Sure enough, the woman wanted to purchase the lunch stuff on two separate receipts presumably because she was purchasing for a friend as well (or because she had no friends but wanted to look like someone was sharing lunch with her. If that was the case then it worked; kudos!). Anyway the till person scans through half of the stuff, bags it and tells her how much it is. The woman gets out her purse from her handbag, extracts the right cash sum and gives it to her, then puts her purse away (notice the italics? That's to tell you that what I just said was the key to the forthcoming punchline, I say this because the punchline isn't obvious and some of you reading this may need to stop and think). The till person then scans through the other half of the stuff, bags it and tells her how much it. The woman then looks perplexed, frowns and slowly her eyes clear and she goes into her bag, takes out her purse, finds the right money and gives it to the till lady.

The second story is this: Me and Cafferine (oops, third name) go into some posh tea / coffee shop because she wants some posh coffee. While she's buying it I get a look through the staff only door and see their staff room. On a sideboard next to the sink is a kettle, some mugs and a jar of Tesco's generic instant coffee.

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