Basket only…

The checkout operator had paused to alert a supervisor of a problem with her till. The lady in front of me had just loaded her shopping onto the conveyor belt and the customer being served was waiting to pay, I presume.
I was happy to wait and was rather enjoying the time to stand and observe those around me. (Those conversational gems might crop up, one never knows).
It was a busy Monday morning. Several tills were unmanned, clearly something the hovering supervisor was not happy with. He signalled for a young lad to man the till next to me. It was of no use to me of course, it displayed a, “baskets only” sign. My trolley was rather full.
No one joined the young lad at the basket checkout.
“Excuse me Madam, would you like to go to that one?” the supervisor appeared before me. I glanced uncertainly at the checkout next to us,
“That’s baskets only,” I reminded him.
“It doesn’t matter, you’ll be ages here, otherwise,” he told me, “go ahead, use that one,”
I was dubious about this instruction but far be it from me to question a supervisor. I trundled my trolley to the basket checkout and grinned at the young lad who stared at me blankly,
“I have been instructed to come here,” I smiled, nodding towards the supervisor who gave me the thumbs up.
The lad looked around. I was the only one near. He shrugged and waited as I began unloading my trolley. I had a lot of shopping.
That’s when the bearded man with the basket of several small items, joined the queue. I was aware that he had plonked the divider half way along the conveyor belt. I was still loading my shopping. How rude. I piled as much as I could into the now limited space and left the rest in the trolley as the lad had not yet begun ringing items through.
“I don’t have room to load it all, you had better start,” I instructed.
Without changing his expression, which was one of complete indifference, he began passing the goods through and I began throwing them into whatever bags I could grab from my half full trolley. It was a slow process as, in my attempt to fit everything I could on the conveyor belt, my normal neatly categorised items had spilled over into the wrong sections. To make matters worse, I am still not meant to carry heavy bags so had to use twice the usual number to make sure they were light enough for me to transport. The boy did not offer to help pack.
A female supervisor caught my attention to my left, as she called out sharply, more sharply than I thought necessary,
“Were you told to use this checkout? Only it is basket only.”
Bearded man looked smug and I thought he glared at me a little.
“Yes, I was told to use this one,” I confirmed.
“Oh, well,” she said, darting an accusing glance at both me and the other supervisor as though we were in cahoots.
By now, others with baskets had joined the queue. I continued to load the conveyor belt with the rest of the items in my trolly, having to slip them in before the bearded chap’s shopping took over.
“Oh dear,” I muttered to the bearded chap as the task became ever more difficult. He had the grace to smile but could not move his shopping back to allow me more room as his fellow basketeers had claimed the space by now.
I could feel several pairs of eyes boring into me and had to fight a sudden urge to laugh. The checkout lad displayed no such problem and continued to scan my mismatched items without so much as a smirk.
As the last items landed in my shopping bags which were now sitting, a little haphazardly, in the empty trolley, I prepared to pay.
As I pushed my bank card into the machine and punched in my pin, I smiled at the young lad serving,
“Now you are going to have to explain to all those people that I was sent here, and that’s why they’ve all been kept waiting,” I told him and you know what? He grinned.
If you were one of those people standing in the Sainsbury’s checkout this morning, with your bag of apples, sandwich and a bottle of milk or whatever else fits into a basket, I can only apologise but it wasn’t my fault – I was sent!