A SMALL COLLECTION OF FOUR AWKWARD THINGS

And another evening getting weird looks in the supermarket.

I forgot to take my bag-for-life. That was the first mistake. I don’t like buying new bags because I’m not certain that 5p is enough to save a turtle from choking, so I was left with the option of balancing my small collection of four awkward things I’d bought, in my arms.

I was wearing gloves too - thick woolly ones because...  it’s absolutely freezing in there! I mean properly cold; the wind whips down the aisles and gets right into your bones in Sainsbury’s - I don’t know why.

So I cradled my shopping in my begloved arms and made my way to the self-service tills.

Now, you might be aware of this phenomenon, but for some material reason, you can’t operate a smart screen through normal woolly gloves - something to do with heat or lack of friction I guess; I don’t know the science of it. So anyway, to save myself some time, I made what you might describe as an impulse decision, and opted for quickly and carefully... bopping the touch-screen ‘Start’ button... with my nose.

I know.

Hindsight.

I should have (1) put the four items down (I was going to have to scan them anyway, wasn’t I?) and (2) taken my gloves off! That would have been the action of any sensible person. But I thought it would save time to just, well, you know... conk it.

Of course, I happen to have worse nose-eye co-ordination than a blindfolded elephant, so I missed the ‘Start’ button altogether, stood up straight and sighed to myself, just in time to see a guy looking at me as though he’d spotted a weirdo kissing a till in the middle of Sainsbury’s!

Which of course, he sort of had. I quickly put down my shopping and whipped off my gloves. Beep went the ‘Start’ button.

-

It was so cold outside! The air was frozen stiff as I waddled through it, still clutching my four things - a carton of pomegranate juice, some pasta (tagliatelle), chopped tomatoes, and a box of Linda McCartney’s pulled pork burgers. It was like walking through the polar ice caps. If... they’d built a Sainsbury’s car park on the polar ice caps of course. I shivered my way to the car.

Now, for some reason these days, I’ve started putting my keys in my left coat pocket... instead of  my right. It’s a recent thing this, although I’ve no idea when it began. However, it is actually quite useful! I’m better at carrying things in my right hand than my left, and much better at unlocking things with my left hand than I am at unlocking things with my right if I’m already carrying something with my left... if you see what I mean. It’s an okay system.

The trouble is, my brain hasn’t quite caught up with it. So as I approached the car, which was glinting in the freezing lamplight, I precariously transferred all my stuff to my left hand (tomatoes, pasta, juice, burgers) and took off my right glove, ready to fish around in my right coat pocket for my keys. Which weren’t there.

Then I transferred it all back and pulled out my keys from the other pocket. Then my phone buzzed unexpectedly, and I dropped the can of chopped tomatoes, which rolled, quite perfectly, right underneath the car.

It would have been worth the 5p bag wouldn’t it? That was what I thought as I groped around the frozen wet tarmac. If I kept it hidden away somewhere forever, maybe it would never endanger a turtle.

“Lost your keys?” said a nice lady.

“Um, no, tomatoes!” I said, as though that would be less weird and not more so. She didn’t know what to say I suppose, so she wandered back to her own car.

I got it. The can rolled out; I triumphantly slung it in with the tagliatelle, the burgers, and the pomegranate juice on the passenger seat, and got in, shutting the door behind me. Unbelievable.

The dashboard thermometer said it was -1 degree. No temperature to be scrabbling around under a Ford Focus for some chopped tomatoes is it?

Emmie had whatsapped me from Canada, my phone informed me. Apparently in Toronto it was -20 with a real-feel of -33 with the wind-chill! And there’s me complaining about -1! 

“That’s practically summer!” she said.

Had I been there, I wagered, it would have been a different story.

I really must remember my bag-for-life next time.