Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Unbelievable

I was sitting in the car at Sainsbury’s petrol station in Hanley whilst P was putting petrol in, whiling away the time watching other people, as you do. No? Just me then. Anyway, this man, fortyish, shorts, t-shirt, cap from under which sprouted bleached blond hair, had filled up his car and was wandering over to the payment kiosk. He stopped near the dispenser for the local newspaper - The Sentinel - (well you may want to know the fine details), he opened the dispenser, took out a paper, closed the dispenser, placed the paper on the lid and flicked through a few pages. Then he wandered into the kiosk, both cashiers were free, looked around the walls and the displays, eventually picked up a chocolate bar (sorry, I wasn’t close enough to read which kind) then finally went up to the cash desk to pay. As P was being served at the second till, the man took a phone call, chatted for a few moments, then moved outside to talk on the phone. This call over he proceeded to dial another number. In the meantime other people were beginning to go into the kiosk to pay for their petrol. P, when he came back to the car, confirmed that the man had walked away from the cashier, left his newspaper, sweets and bank card on the counter, left a half completed transaction so that no one else could use that till and a growng queue for the remaining cashier to cope with.

Many words and phrases spring to mind which I won’t use here, but suffice to say what an incredibly, rude, thoughtless, selfish and stupid person I thought he was.

4 comments:

  1. Being a waitress, I can tell you stories of unbelievable rudeness with cell phones.
    People would rather be rude to the people in front of them, than to those on the phone!
    shame, shame!!

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  2. Yes, some people do seem to lose all sense of reality when their phone rings and it is so easy to let it take a message and ring back - even better switch off in a public place like a shop or restaurant and check up on it later.
    Ah, well :)

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  3. What an idiot he sounds. Apart from the annoyance caused isn't it illegal to have your phone switched on at a petrol station? it could cause an explosion. Last week I saw a man in an open top car talking on his phone as he pulled into a petrol station thus breaking two laws in one go.

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  4. I think you are right carol, you are supposed to switch off phones at petol pumps for safety reasons - he didn't care did he?

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