Shopping | Words on the Street

hit-by-car On Friday 13^th, I made the mistake of opening my front door and embarking upon a perilous journey along the pavement to the local Tesco Express a couple of hundred yards from where I live.

As I negotiated the incredibly dangerous wildlife infested grass verge and the chasm-like cracks between the pavement flags, a nice comfortable safe little driverless car mounted the pavement adjacent to the car park and ran me down.

I actually screamed – twice. A man scream, you understand, not a girly one, but prompted by a fear of the considerable damage to my person and excruciating pain that I was convinced would follow. I was knocked unceremoniously to the ground between two parked cars with my left leg directly in the path of the oncoming car’s nearside front wheel, which then traversed the said leg in the ankle area agonisingly slowly, as I was fervently praying it would not actually come to rest on top of it – I seem to remember it almost did and the thought horrified me: I imagine the shock affected my ability to recollect the precise course of events but my leg somehow eventually finished free of the wheel, thankfully.

The Tesco manageress was very kind and helped to comfort me while I was lying on the ground and ensured someone called an ambulance (she also gave one of the paramedics a bag of ice to put on the injured limb – so far as I know, this is still in the A & E staff-room freezer at Salisbury Hospital – I forgot to ask for it back). Another lady who also helped to look after me turned out to be a nurse – so that was a bonus.

The policeman who had attended the incident called to see me after we’d returned from the hospital and gave me the driver’s details in case I want to pursue an injury claim through the driver’s insurers. He’d viewed the CCTV footage and told me he couldn’t understand how I was still walking! Apparently, it was an automatic car and the driver must have left it in Drive instead of Park and trodden on the accelerator as he was getting out – with the hilarious consequences hereinbefore described. The poor old gentleman was distraught and has surrendered his driving licence to the police voluntarily – a somewhat precipitous action, I think, and I do feel genuinely sorry for him – when all’s said and done, it was just a freak accident and, by all accounts, the only one he’s had in all his years of driving.

Anyway, after thorough examination, X-rays, cleaning of a couple of cuts and minor scrapes and the application of a compression bandage, I was pronounced lucky, fit to go home and nowhere near as scathed (is that a word?) as I ought to have been. I was instructed to sit with my leg elevated for a couple of days with an icepack applied two or three times a day. I have cut one of those pointless Vacuvin thingies, you know the padded jackets you chill in the freezer and that fit round a bottle of wine (useful only if the bottle contains its, er, contents for any appreciable period of time after opening – not in our house, obviously) into a continuous strip which can be wrapped round the bottom of my leg and is secured with the strap from a baby’s high chair. Ingenious or what?

Ah, yes, the speed bump…

human-speed-bump

[July update: the injury is now an open wound which will take several months to heal *gulp*]

[September update: still an open wound, but slowly healing; down to once or twice a week at the medical centre to have dressings changed and compression bandages fitted]

[October update: almost healed and all bandages/dressings dispensed with; however, it still bloody well hurts!]

[December update: I am being referred to an orthopaedic surgeon. An appointment has been made for March 14th – apparently, the earliest available!]

[September 2017 update: now undergoing lower-limb physiotherapy once a week – two sessions to go. Seems to be helping but I can’t see things will improve much more. However, I have resurrected my bike from the depths of the garage so will continue to try and help myself]

A while ago, our local Waitrose supermarket reopened after a major refurbishment and I began to do my shopping with the aid of electrickery. You have to have a John Lewis Partnership credit card (which a very nice lady let me sign up for when I went in the store prior to the building improvements) and you go to a bank of scanners and swipe the card down one of the slots. A screen says “Welcome, Mr Bluepants!” (marvellous!) and one of the scanner cradles lights up, showing you which one to take. When you pick it up, the display on it says “Welcome, Mr Bluepants!” (how can it get any better?)

The first time you do your electric shopping, they give you four jolly good quality bags (2 large, 2 small) into which you bung your provisions after you have scanned each item. How does that nice Mr Waitrose know you’ve scanned everything in your bags? Well, he trusts you. But sometimes, if he’s feeling a bit tetchy and suspicious, he’ll come in unexpectedly and turn your trolley over. He will repack the bags for you, though, and very nicely, I am reliably informed.

When you scan certain items, the device will emit a loud danger signal – it frightened me to death the first time it happened – but this simply means the item is subject to some sort of special offer: £1.50 each, buy 2 for £2.75 (ooh, beep! beep!); 3 for the price of 2 (ooh, beep! beep! beep!); I’m sure I can hear Mr Waitrose on his way to the bank, guffawing rather loudly.

Well, when you’ve finished cramming stuff into the lovely green bags, you go to the Quick Check Counter and complete your transaction, all without having to talk to a single soul. You can studiously ignore any of Mr Waitrose’s Little Helpers even if they ask if you need any assistance or wonder if you’re having a nice day. You just stick the John Lewis card in the slot and a message on the screen says “Well done, Mr Bluepants, you’ve finished your shopping, and Mr Waitrose says thank you and hahahahahahaha!” or something like that; then it tells you to take out that card and insert your payment card (of course, it can be the same one, if you like); it thinks for a little bit, then prints your receipt and gives your card back. Fantastic!

You almost want to stay in the shop a bit longer, and you feel as if you’ve been cheated in some way. Which of course you have been, otherwise you wouldn’t have bought 249 items for the price of 250 and loads of food which will be well past its eat by date before you’ve eaten all the other food. Still, it’s marvellous what they can do with electrickery these days, isn’t it?