A little man with a tape recorder up to my face, his squeals incomprehensible. Jabs a pudgy finger at my pocket. Creepy crawly. What the fuck? Oh shit; the chocolate raisins...
Damn. And damn him too (cos he's heard it all before).
Listen to the store manager high up in his office; wrong job arsehole, you should be writing for Shortland Street. He’s heartbroken, he’s furious. It’s a personal attack on his worth, his bank account: “you’re filth and by God I’ll make sure you never get a job in my store.”
That really hurt. I've always dreamed of working the checkout.
The fat cop is well known locally for punching drunk kids 'up to no fucking good', but under the glare of fluorescents he kindly pushes my trolley out towards his car which is parked dramatically across the supermarket's entrance. I wonder if he slid it in sideways, clambered out the window. Nah, not with that gut. First they came for the terrorists, then the shoplifters. We navigate the field of craning necks: the boy in blue and the boy in black.
The hostility is kinda intense (“that's the third one they got this week”). Perhaps I'm the reason prices are so high. I'd love to chat; y'know, the economics of food, benefit cuts, globalisation, profit and all that, but I've places to go as you may well understand. So it's a matter of chin up and look 'em in the eye as they clutch credit cards and discount coupons. It's a long walk.
“What did the man do mum?”
Wouldn't, couldn't, pay.
“He's a bad man honey.”
That hurt the most.
(Originally published in Takahe Magazine 2009)
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