Late night shopping

Anna took me to Lakeside this evening after work. It’s been mutually decided that we’ll all dress up for our grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary this weekend as they usually look nice and make an effort, so we should too. We hit all the dress shops and finally get purchases from Debenhams – a black and teal paisley dress from Jane Norman for Anna and a beige and black lace dress by Julien Macdonald for me. We are gonna look gorgeous!!

It was quite late and we needed to find a sweet shop that sold ‘rhubarb and custards’ for Chris. We go to the big sweet shop and while Anna is making her choice, I nip over to Millie’s Cookies for hot chocolate and two cookies for Reuben. I walked back and she wasn’t there! What the hell? I sat on a bench and waited. She comes rushing out of the sweet shop.
“I looked for you but you weren’t in there.”
“I was by the beans at the back.”
“Why?”
“The man yelled at me.”
Look of disbelief.
“Yeah, he was talking in some rubbish language and I asked him about the chocolate bars and he was yelling at me, “Oh you people have TIME on your hands, you’re all RUBBISH, can’t do anything” and just having a go.”
“Shit!”
“I know! I was backed up into the corner and he turned and I escaped!”
“Do you want me to have a go at him?”
“No, you’re alright.”

Slightly shocked we go to the small sweet counter just round the corner from the shop. Anna shovels the sweets into a bag and the guy weighs them.
“£6.92” he says.
“Oh,” Anna says, “can I put some back?”
“How much?”
“Well I only wanted a fiver.”
“£5?”
“£5” Anna says, holding up 4 fingers and a thumb.
“£5,” the man repeats.
“You want £5 for that?” Anna asks, a bit bewildered.
“£5” he says again, holding his hand out and opening the till.
“Okay!” Anna says, whipping out a note.
The man takes it, gives her the bag and then passes us two chocolate mint creams as well.
“Cool,” I said. “The man round the corner yelled at us. Definitely coming here again!”
The man grinned. We walked away delighted.
“Do you think he understood what we were saying?” Anna asks.
“I dunno.” Pause. “Do you reckon it’s stealing?”
“Why? I paid for them!”
“Not fully.”
“Oh well.”