My years of being crap with money and crap with banks. or rather, the years when the banks realised how crap I was and exploited me for every penny of debt they could, means that these days the only plastic in my wallet is a cashpoint card and a nectar card.
The lack of debit/credit facilities means that when in Sainsbury’s I have to be very careful. I can only buy as much as I have cash in my wallet.
Normally this is fine, I keep a rough subtotal of things in my head, rounding up everything to be on the safe side.
Tonight though I was in a bad mood. Bad moods and Sainburys are not conducive to value for money.
There were no cherry tomatoes so I bought taste the different ones, I even toyed at the idea of buying asparagus. This usually shows I’m not mentally fit.
And besides, buying lots of produce on a strict cash budget makes things harder to regulate as there is a lot of guesswork in the prices.
But I wasn’t really paying any attention at all, after all, I had £20 on me, and didn’t intend to buy that much.
But my oblivious mood had me buying crème freche, toying with some olives and at least considering guacamole.
By the time I got to the till my mood had stopped, and like a someone coming out of a frenzy to see that before him is a mutilated corpse, I found a basket of middle class crap.
I took out my wallet to find a memory of purchasing cigarettes. Meaning there was only £14.02 left.
I did a quick mental add up off the basket. I reckoned it would be around £14, this was going to be close.
The stuff was already going through, I couldn’t get rid of everything. I was bagging it all up, a sweat was forming on my brow.
The lady gave me the total. Aaargh £14.32 – how humiliating. Do I try and ask to be let off? No? I have to embarrassingly say that I’m 20p short. I ask her to take the cinnamon Danish off of the bill. I was looking forward to that.
She does so, looking at me (perhaps rightfully) as a piece of pretentious shite, pretending to be middle class, but not being able to afford it.
I paid.
I left sainsburys, head held low.
I got on the tube, the silly cow had left the Danish in the bag.
Ahahahaha, I had the last laugh as crumbs of cinnamon goodness rolled down my cheeks.