EDitorial ± 29-Jun-2005

Check It Out

Down to Jamie Oliver's supermarket to give The Boy some practice on his two-wheeled early birthday present. He can only just touch the ground with his toes, so he's fine as long as he keeps moving.

So we do the aisles in search of bread products: sliced wholemeal for kiddies, big tiger loaf for 'dults, four-pack of bagels and a now-only-10p French stick to gnaw on the way home.

At the checkout I rummage through my shorts pockets for my cards, and they're not there. No sign in the body of my rucksack either, and only just over a pound in change, i.e. Not Enough. Cue some very British embarrassment, disgruntled looks from those in the queue behind, and a wait for The Supervisor. At which point I discover the cards in one of the sack's many side pockets.

Now this feels like something out of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I hide the fact that I've found a means of payment - the appropriate time to pay has past - and The Supervisor takes my unpaid-for items to the customer desk. She says: so you need to pop outside to the cash machine? Er, yes, I say, so father and son go through the charade of leaving the shop, withdraw some token cash from the hole in the wall, and return to the desk with our £20 note to claim our bakery goods.

And The Boy does pretty well on the way back home, having only one mishap involving a wheely bin on the pavement.