Hustled ahead of another guy at the supermarket today to get to the shortest queue.
I didn’t so much ‘push ahead’ of him as quicken my walking pace slightly to arrive first at the checkout. There were only two people ahead of me, and they only had a couple of items each.
Unfortunately, they were both nonagenarians, or near enough to, and they’re were patently not in a hurry. The first old chap had a nice chat to the checkout operator, and then asked if he could take some cash out at the same time, before dropping his card on the floor. After a prolonged conversation about whether the cash would be included in or separate from the cost of his current purchase, he finished his transaction. Any hope that the elderly woman behind him might be his wife were dashed when she then started putting her purchases on the counter. She wasn’t as talkative as the first customer but appeared to be struggling somewhat with the technology, which was tricky when combined with an apparent hearing deficit. “Press the green button!” Shouted the checkout person a couple of times, before smiles and nods of encouragement which seemed promising until this lady too remembered she needed to get some cash out. In the meantime, the chap I’d pushed ahead of sailed past ostentatiously on his way out of the store.
Well, I couldn’t really complain, I had nowhere else I had to be, although I’d have been glad to have been anywhere else. Good on them so for still being independent, after all they had already lived through (at least) one world war. Strange, though, that they should act like they had all the time in the world, when really, the opposite is the case, surely? Tick tick! Or is that a bit soulless and grim of me, for a Friday afternoon?