The quick visit to the Co-op for milk, papers and a lottery ticket was less speedy than I'd expected. Dawdling old women provided the first obstacle, but once at the start of the first aisle, I veered left and sped up the parallel one towards the milk at the back of the store. Inanimate objects then provided further obstacles - stupidly positions displays of shite that turned the wide aisle into two splinters of space, one of which was hogged by a twat restocking shelves. I dodged an oncoming basket waver, and reached the milk. The return journey was less fraught, until the sight of the queue dampened my spirits.
Struggling on her own at one of the two kiosk tills was "Olive" - a worker so reminiscent of the character from On The Buses that I'd swear she was a reincarnation. My dampened spirits were fucking soaked through when my ears were assaulted by a loud cunt behind me. Two blokes and a woman had joined the queue behind me, and were unimpressed with its length. The shorter man of about fifty was the noisy cunt. His mission seemed to be as loud as possible and make sure everyone in the shop count hear every syllable. He succeeded. It seemed he'd been away (fuck knows where - he missed out that bit) and hadn't yet been to bed; it was 11.20am. He was apparently "living a rock'n'roll lifestyle". Twat. "I haven't had any sleep - I haven't even had a pint yet," he announced, drowning out the sound of a fighter jet passing overhead. [I made that bit up]
The shelf-stacker took up his position at one of the checkout lanes, to provide relief for Olive. The relief was actually for ME, seeing as it allowed the noisy cunt to pay and go rather more quickly. Thank God he didn't want a lottery ticket, requiring him to wait for Olive to conduct affairs.
Behind me was a small, old woman, one of the little obstacles who'd caught up by this stage. She seemed intent on trying to nudge me forward, even though there was nowhere for me to go. Talk about invading personal space! As the chap in front of me departed, I stepped forward and awaited input from the enigma that is Olive. She scanned the milk and place it in a carrier bag for me, showing initiative and helpfulness. She then undid all that good work with her unusual approach to dealing with newspapers.
The Saturday editions of the Daily Mail and The Sun are enhanced through the inclusion of television guides for the week ahead, and hampered with the extras which generally consider of leaflets and mini-catalogues for various companies touting comfy clothing for old folk, Argos special offers, offers for seeds or sofa flyers. This week was no exception, and the extra padding served to strengthen the newspapers. Olive saw this (or should that be felt) as a challenge, and proceeded with efforts to bend the combined mass of paper in half, against the spine. I am quite sure that every paperback every read by Olive is a victim of abuse, with a broken spine and bent corners. The counter served her as a back-stop, as she leaned into the manoeuvre and downwards on to the counter, attempting to unnecessarily bend the cunting fuck out of today's news and this week's TV.
She relented as I asked for a lottery ticket, and as I took from her the papers, she pissed about with the ticket machine. I allowed the newspapers' chemical bonds to adopt their former positions, and order was restores as a simply lengthways fold before a slip under my left arm brought peace and harmony to the Co-op. Not as much restoring to harmony as the contribution of the noisy cunt, who'd left the shop as I was watching Olive's origami demonstration. Through the window I saw him cross the road in a fashion that defies explanation. Sadly no passing joyrider was around to flick him into the gutter, and he entered a pub opposite, no doubt anxious to 'entertain' people who have nothing better to do than listen, sup beer at 11.24am, and pray for noisier fighter jets. This bloke makes Fred Elliott seem like the Horse Whisperer!
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