M.C. Beaton

Do you know there is a circle in hell where I will probably end up which is one huge supermarket? The shopping trolleys always go sideways, the children always scream, I always have at least one item of shopping which doesn't have the bar code on it and so I wait and wait until someone goes and finds one with the bar code and the people in the lengthening crowd behind me hate me. Or when I get to the check-out at the Express Lane, Nine Items Only, three people in front of me have at least twenty items and I haven't the courage to protest. Or the woman at the till who knows everyone in the line except me indulges in long and happy chit-chat and when it gets to me she decides to change the roll of paper in the till. Or the woman in front of me watches all her groceries sliding along and stares at them without packing them, and then she slowly takes out her cheque-book and slowly proceeds to write a cheque and then insists on carefully packing her plastic shopping bags according to type of grocery. And then, when it's all over and I get to the revolving doors and see daylight outside, I suddenly find myself back at the beginning of the whole process.