I don't claim to be the world's most patient man when it comes to queuing, but I usually manage to to bite my tongue and suffer in silence—with just the occasional, very British tut thrown in for good measure. But last week, they really were taking the piss.
It started at Tesco on Thursday. I'd queued very patiently while the man on the checkout had an item-by-item conversation with the elderly lady in front of me. She then took out her purse and paid in coppers.
But, when it finally came to my turn, the checkout man just stared at my bottles of wine on the conveyor belt and began to rearrange them. I coughed politely, and he rearranged them some more.
"That's a particularly good one," I said eventually, pointing at an Aussie Shiraz. It was the only way I could think of catching his attention.
"Ooh! Really?" said the man, who then proceeded to hunt around for a pen and copy down the name of the wine onto a piece of paper. "I might try that one next," he said.
Then, on Saturday, I spent what seemed like 20 minutes standing behind some bloke who was evidently going for the high score on the local cashpoint machine.
Either that, or he was emailing home.
