From: Not_Al_Crawford@ed.ac.uk (Not Al Crawford)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Re: A Nightmare on West Mains Road Part IV
Keywords: doom, gloom, new dark age, oppression. The Cure's Greatest Hits?
Date: 13 Apr 92 17:54:57 GMT
Reply-To: Not_Al_Crawford@ed.ac.uk (Not Al Crawford)
Organization: Penicuik People's Revolutionary Sheepdog Liberation Front

And lo, egev05@castle.ed.ac.uk (B A Page) spake unto the masses saying:
>
> 4.  Move in Cameron Toll (shopping centre) without squashing 15
> screaming children (this may be seen by some as an antipeeve but I for
> one dislike getting blood on my shoes).

You took the words right out of my mouth Babs - I went down there this
afternoon for the express purpose of buying some High Fibre Malties (like
Shreddies only made from cardboard) and one or two other things. The chain
of events went something like this...

I go into Our Price. I look around. Hmm, despite the fact that they were
advertising it, they didn't seem to have the new Recoil album. So I asked
at the counter. Yes, they had it, they just hadn't put it on the shelves.
Very helpful I must say.

Then I went into Savacentre. The first peeve here was that, it being a
holiday, they'd got some special sort of kiddie attraction on. With
faultless logic, this was positioned right at the entrance to the shop, so
that a queue of kiddies blocked the way. Still, not a problem. Kicking a
few kids out of the way, I fought my way into the shop.

Next peeve - no baskets. Lots and lots of trolleys, but no baskets. I
wandered up and down the checkouts and grabbed one from a little old lady
the very nanosecond she finished emptying it. I may have growled at her
too.

OK, I wander around the shops. I pick up the cereal, some razor blades,
some mouth ulcer pastilles (yep, they're ba-aack), some coffee and some
Acti-Brush. Then I remembered - I was going to check the price of
Acti-Brush in Boots The Chemists first. So I have to go back around the
shop, put everything back then relinquish my hard-earned basket.

Just to discover that the Acti-Brush was the same price in Boots. So back
into Savacentre I go. Again I search long and hard for a basket. Eventually
I find one and get everything and make a bee-line for the "12 Items Or
Less" Queue. Just to find that there's 15 people ahead of me in it, all of
whom have *exactly* 12 items. 20 minutes or so later I get out of the shop.
Now I'd promised to make some tapes for friends, so I head for Currys where
I spotted the only known colony of SA-X 90 triple packs in Cameron Toll.

I end up behind a guy who is paying for a complete video camcorder system
(costing more than the GNP of a small third world country and with which he
could quite easily set up his own TV production company) by filling in a
credit deal that would probably go down well in that part of Hell that
draws up the immortal soul contracts. Apparently filling in the forms
requires both the sales assistants. Eventually one of the floor staff
appears and, after I've checked that they accept Switch, she takes the
tapes. Then she discovers that her keys won't fit in the free till. Neither
will anybody elses. So I have to wait until the Credit Agreement From Hell
has been filled in for her to get to the other till to ring the tapes up.
As does the little old lady in the queue behind me (the one who tried to
*jump* the queue until I glared at her).

Eventually the guy signs his name in blood and the till is free. I buy my
tapes and leave, noticing the now-considerably-older looking little old
lady still waiting in the queue.

OK, one last thing. With it being a holiday, May's Snack Bar in this
building was closed (*despite* the fact that on holidays most of the
postgrads in this building and many of the staff are still around). So by
now I was hungry and went into Forbuoys to buy a King Size Mars Bar.
Dodging (well, dodging isn't quite the right word - trampling would be more
accurate) lots of annoying little kids, many of whom were carrying
balloons, I pick up a Mars bar and go to the checkout. To discover that the
woman in the queue in front of me is apparently checking the price of
everything in the shop before buying anything.

Argh.

Still, at least with it being a holiday everywhere else I didn't feel
particularly compelled to work today. Being in an empty building with no
facilities available and all the lights turned off does that to me.

--
		Not Al Crawford - Not_Al_Crawford@ed.ac.uk
     "The water shines/A sheepdog skips across the face/A dozen times"
Newsgroups: alt.peeves