THAT UNLUCKY NUMBER

A few years ago, I was given a shopping receipt at our creative group and was asked to write a short story with it. This is what I came up with…
Susan was tapping her fingers impatiently on the metal bar that lined up between her and her shopping that she had perfectly laid on the rubbery conveyer belt, in a perfect fashion. She simply couldn’t understand what the problem was with the bloke in front of her who was almost begging the cashier to change the price of his own shipping.
She saw on the digital display, that his shopping had come to a grand total of £13.49, which was cheaper than her own bundle which (by her perfect calculations) came to £21.05 which was disappointing as she wasn’t carry any silver on her, so instead she had £22 pounds slowing getting warmer in her hand, she’d have to wash the metallic smell off them later.
Bored of the song she had playing in her headphones, she instead decided to amuse herself by listen to the man’s argument.
“Listen I insist on you lowering the price of my shopping. I’ll even pay more as long as it’s more than £13, I won’t pay that.”
“I’m sorry sir, I can’t change the price for you, that’s our policy I’m afraid. But you’re welcome to quickly grab a sweet from behind you, or some batteries maybe.” The cashier offered, gesturing at the advised items.
Yes please just pick something quickly thought Susan, she had to hurry home so she could throw together a quick vegetable hot pot and chug it down before her yoga class that evening.
But that looked like it was a wasted wish as the customer shook his head “But I don’t need batteries and sweets are bad for my teeth.” He argued, whinging like a little kid.
Susan cannot help but give a small snort of laughter, looking at the cakes and crisps his own shopping consisted, she highly doubted that he had he’s health in mind.
The customer did not take kindly to her amusement as he look over at her and glared “Do you have a problem?”
She tried to suppress a laughter as she shook her head “I’m not the one with problem, you clearly have some issues yourself.”
Ignoring the cashiers attempts to calm him down, the man squared himself up at Susan “Oh really? I’m not the one that’s trying to win a strange game of Tetris with her shopping.”
“At least I’m not obsessed with the idea of the number 13, which, by the way, is also how many items of food you have.” She replied as she quickly counted his shopping.
Without warning, Susan suddenly found herself with a face full of fizzy diet coke, after clearing the carbonated brown liquid from her eyes, she saw the man grinning as he dropped the empty bottle on the floor.
He turned back to the cashier, still smiling “I believe that solve my cash issue?”
But before the cashier could argue that he would still have to pay for the coke, Susan had popped open her own bottle of skimmed milk and threw as much milk as she could over the man.
This trigger a food fight between to two adults and it took four security guards to escort them out of the supermarket, leaving them both outside without either of their shopping, but neither of them had anyway to correct that as the guards clearly told them they were both now banned from there.
That was how Susan first met her triskaidekaphobia husband, Terry and to this day, nearly 5 years now, they’re still banned from that supermarket……

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