It’s pancake day today. I like pancakes. We had American style chocolate chip mini pancakes for lunch and we are having thin large pancakes for dinner (I would call them ‘normal’ pancakes, but that might be a matter of opinion!).
Our pancakes for dinner will be a mixture of savoury and sweet. I plan to chop up some vegetables, grate some cheese, put out some cold meats and have a self-assembly system. But I needed more milk and eggs for the pancakes and some vegetables and cold meats. Most of the meal!
Off I trot to the local shop. An easy task, you would think. There’s a Tesco Express about a kilometre away that stocks all of those things (for those not in the UK – Tesco Express is a small shop that stocks a slimmed down range of supermarket products and a kilometre is a bit less than a mile).
It’s a nice day, warm and not raining. I can get out without needing the canoe, waders or even wellies! Good day for a short walk. So the three of us set off to use the walk to the shop as our ‘daily exercise’. It was lovely not to need a hat or scarf but I wasn’t brave enough to go without gloves!
Only one person is allowed into the shop under current Covid-19 restrictions, so I popped in on my own, trying to put my face mask on with my gloves on as I walked up to the entrance. It took me three attempts – I could feel when the elastic was over my ear.
Then I stepped through the sliding door and into the shop. Straught inside the door is a sanitising station. What do I do? I can’t put sanitiser on my gloves. I could take them off, put sanitiser on, then put them back on. But that makes the sanitiser a bit pointless. I could take them off, put them in a shopping basket and then sanitise my hands, leaving my gloves in the basket with the shopping. That would work but would take a few minutes because I would also have to sanitise the handle of the basket.
By the time I had considered my options, there was a queue forming behind me as I was blocking the entrance. I settled for keeping my gloves on and hoping!
I easily collected the vegetables I wanted and moved on to the cooked meat section. They had packs of mixed meats, some prosciutto, salami and chorizo, sliced and ready to use. Perfect. I picked one up, quite grateful for my gloves because the fridge was quite cold.
I collected the other things I needed and headed to the checkout. Tesco Express has 2 self-checkout machines and one counter. I went to the only one available – a self-checkout machine, which objected to nearly everything I scanned. The checkout assistant had to override the machine so much that it became a routine. Rachel scans item, assistant pushes button on her till to override machine, Rachel scans item, assistant pushes button to override machine – you get the picture. Then I got to the mixed meats. It scanned okay and as I went to put it in my bag, I realised that I had two packs stuck together!
What should I do? I didn’t want two packets, but I can’t put one back because there are people waiting to use this machine. I can’t just leave one somewhere. That’s a bit mean because it should be in the fridge – and there was nowhere I could put it. I couldn’t ask the assistant to put it back because she was serving an older chap who was struggling and needed a lot of input.
But…I could put both packs in my bag. The assistant would just push the override button and no one would know.
But…That’s stealing. It’s illegal, unethical and wrong. I have never deliberately stolen anything in my life.
But…it seemed like the most sensible option.
“What did you do?” I hear you yell. I think I did the most cowardly and British thing I could and scanned both. Paying for two items when I only wanted one!
I’m going to send one of the othes into the shop next time. It’s all too stresfull for me!
