SERVICE WITH A SMILE

SERVICE WITH A SMILE

This morning I visited a local branch of Tesco, the UK’s largest supermarket chain. We needed coffee for our machine and know they sell that brand there. I also fancied buying something for Dorothy because that’s the kind of thing that gives me genuine pleasure – you see, I must be a creep.

And my chief medical supplies were running low. By that I mean my rolls of Refresher sweets. (When I was a child my mother bought me a roll at a time I was recovering from a really nasty bout of flu, and I was so impressed by the speed with which wellness returned I have attributed it to those sweets. Childish, I know, but it is legal!)

Anyway, Tesco’s it had to be.

I’m the sort of guy that likes the taste, the flavour and the joy inherent in the word “BARGAIN” so we found a lovely dress for Dorothy on the “reduced by UP TO 50%” rail. Then we found the coffee and went in search of the Refreshers.

Now, for the uninitiated, the Oak Tree branch of Tesco is huge. I’ve often wondered whether I’d ever find my way out if I got lost in there. I have nightmares of being stranded in Cold Meats until my beard touches the ground….

And I wasn’t sure where my Refreshers might be.

So I asked an assistant who was refilling the shelves.

You know how people who think they’ve got a point but haven’t are only too ready to blame immigration to the UK for all their problems? Minds warped by the constant whining of some elements of the tatty press we suffer from in this country do it as a matter of course. A whole political party has sprung into being as a consequence, and we have the U.K. Independence Party, or UKIP for short.

Anyway, I asked a young and attractive female assistant (did I mention she was young and female and attractive? Well, I should have. Accuracy in all things, that’s my motto.) But don’t let’s got off at a tangent when we don’t have to.

I asked her where I might find the sweets.

She asked me (I think it was a charming Polish accent, but it may have originated elsewhere in Eastern Europe) and she was the most helpful woman I’ve met this week (excepting my wife, of course, who’s always helpful).

She directed me not just to the sweets department, not just to the right aisle (did I mention it’s a huge shop? And the aisles are many and plentiful…) No: she directed me to the very sweets I wanted, and with a smile I’d bottle if I could, and sell to Nigel Farage and his loony ilk as a brainwash…

You see, there are good people everywhere and that’s all that really matters.

© Peter Rogerson 21.04.15