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January 24, 2007

DO YOU WANT A FLAKE IN THAT?

There are a lot of South Africans in Putney and the rest of the south London. Most of them are here legally and the majority of those have jobs, some of them are no doubt claiming our tax dollars as benefits but the South African lady in this story was definitely employed, as a checkout assistant in a supermarket, as it happens.

I'd been shopping for my usual weekly groceries, it wasn't enough to warrant the minimum £30 for an online order but enough to fill a few bags and I, of course, had to go to the supermarket to get it. So I grabbed the usual vegetables, some fruit, four pints of milk and a tub of ice cream for my apple and chocolate smoothies and, satisfied with my pickings, I joined the queue at the checkout.

Before too long, I was being served. There was a distinct lack of those divider things though. You know, those triangular shaped bits of plastic that customers use to separate their selection from the next person's, so I just piled my items up and waited my turn.

"Gud eevening sir" the lady assistant said, in a broad South African accent (how do you type in South African?) and I reciprocated the greeting as I began to fill the carrier bags. It was coming thick and fast, this was an efficient assistant and my packing pace was struggling to keep up with the speed of arrival of the goods.

A bit of a backlog piled up as I frantically packed green peppers upon mushrooms upon bananas and then I heard a confused voice say "is this yar arse cream sir?"

"Arse cream?" I questioned, knowing that I had no haemerroidal problems and wondering whether that tube of toothpaste I'd picked up was in fact a tube of piles cream, or worse, some KY. "Arse cream?" I again queried, to the titters of the next person in the queue. And then I actually focused on the item the assistant was showing me. A tub of chocolate ICE cream.

"Oh ICE cream" I blurted, thankful that the misunderstanding was over, at which point the grinning man behind me piped up with "do you want a flake in that mate?"

Posted by jonola14 at January 24, 2007 8:17 PM

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