I was in a short, socially distanced, queue in a major supermarket, at twenty past six in the evening, after work, a month or so ago. The complete queue ahead of me consisted of a younger couple – the lad in baseball cap was clearly a gobby type, and between them and I was an unattended trolley, which it soon became clear belonged to a man who was breaking all distancing rules by leaning over the screen at a checkout, being too close to both the cashier and the customer being served at the time. When he returned to the queue he was loudly making it clear to everyone including the couple in front that he’d been complaining that they weren’t getting served quickly enough. Baseball-cap man then loudly pointed out that the male cashier was “…going even slower now ‘cos yoov said somefink to ‘im (s.i.c.).” The wanderer then started exclaiming to baseball-cap man that he’d said to the cashier that “I won’t need to defrost anyfin’ when I get ‘ome, ‘cos it’ll be done before I leave ‘ere (s.i.c. too)“, or words to that effect, laughing loudly because he thought he was so amusing.
All of us who work in retail will have had to put up with loud-mouthed clever-dicks like him at some point. Emphasis on “dick”. I wasn’t amused even though he looked round at me for affirmation in an “am I right?” kind of way, I expected him to start high-fiving everyone. But no, I thought, you’re not getting any group approval from me, no matter how much you want to look like a supermarket hero, the shoppers’ champion. Another man joined the queue behind me and was similarly agitated, probably in a display of group conformity – everyone else is complaining – “there’s not normally this many customers at this time of night” I wearily muttered to him. In the end we all got through in a reasonable time, my BBQ chicken bake was still frozen when I got home.
I felt like saying to all three of these individuals “have you worked in retail?… no?… you should try it.”
Longfellow's 21st Century Lunch 
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