Service As Usual

 Yesterday, my new book came out and I posted an unboxing video and people were mainly complimentary about my shed but, still, I was in a good mood, so I thought, I'll head to the Co Op and pick up a bottle of delicious wine, or the closest thing they have to a delicious wine in the Co Op. 

The Co Op has changed. It used to be the heart of the community. Old people would stand at the tills chatting to the interested staff and no one cared, because that felt like part of its function. It was a social hub, the village post office, even if the actual post office was round the corner at the Supervalue in King's Square. 

The Co Op is not like that now. Two self service tills appeared, and the staff, now all young men with tragic haircuts, are no longer behind the main tills, because they're blocking the aisles with those shelves on castors, so laden with produce you can't get past them. I'd noticed the sea change when the shop's customer focus seemed to change away from the customers, and onto delivery services. You'd be queuing and suddenly a man in a baseball cap would slide in and be handed a pre-packed bag, his car keys still in his hand. Now they just wait beside the till expectantly, while the people who are supposed to be serving at the till are checking the five things in the delivery bag: Domestos, razor blades, Vodka, a can of Boost Energy, and a Rustler burger (microwave only). 

The model has changed. Those boy's jobs have changed. The shop is now a warehouse, packing goods for delivery. There is no chat and no one to chat to except themselves and the delivery drivers, who are none too chatty. Customers are now irritants, gumming the smooth workings of the shop. The real customers are at home, mouth slack in front of their consoles, unfathomably wealthy princelings who would rather pay a man with a car to pick them up a packet of Tuc biscuits and two litres of Frosty Jack's than get off their own arses. 

Well not me. Maybe I like the inconvenience. Maybe I'm so English I like to queue. So yesterday, I did. And there were two people in front of me. The old guard. My people. A woman in her forties, I'd guess, and a man in his sixties, I'd guess again. It's tricky to age the Northern Irish people: life and a range of terrible personal experiences have got there first. Neither of them are being served. There are two delivery men standing around, and two boys going through plastic bags and having an urgent, hissed conversation. A woman bustles past me and uses the self-service. Traitor, I think. I'm making an point. I am principled. A new delivery driver comes in and takes up his place with the other two but, counterintuitively, this is the point one of the boys notices the queue. He serves the woman at the head of the queue. But she's not just buying. She's complaining. There was a problem with her delivery. Either items are missing or she didn't get the discounts she was anticipating. 

Another woman pushes past me to use the self-service. With the delivery guys and the three-deep queue it's quite the bottleneck we've got going on, but my presence is nothing to the sharp elbowed ladies of Belfast. She's used that till in about thirty seconds. Damn these principles of mine. 

The manager has now joined the two boys and the complaining woman and some sort of progress is made. She makes a Trump style deal, and she's out of there. 

The bloke in front shuffles up to the till, and gets his wallet out. He wants to buy lottery tickets and scratch cards of every variety. His wallet his bulging, and he takes out what looks like 80 quid. I don't have the gambling gene - the only vice I lack - so I'm not sure what sort of a buzz this man is getting from wasting all of his money, but that's what he's there to do, in busy, complicated panoply. The bloke behind the till - on his own now - is getting confused. The man wants a lot of things that look the same but seem to be different, in a specific order, and they all need to be "read" but seem to not be readable, even when passed under a mysterious light. You would not believe how long this takes. A woman sighs behind me. I thought I was the end of the queue, but behind me a snake of dejected people are describing the aisles. The gambler is not rushed. He's holding his nerve, while the server is becoming sweatily flustered. 

Fuck it. 

I go to the self service, swipe the wine, and I'm out of there. Principles be damned. 

I am annoyed, though. 

As I walk up the hill, the way is blocked by three fat, bald, men, having a conversation, but stood slightly apart from each other, as though proximity to another man is too decorously homosexual for their tastes. These are the same men who lean back in their chairs, arms folded across their stomachs, and bellow at each other over the hubbub of the pub. They saw me, but didn't acknowledge me as I approached. Fine. It's fine, lads. I'll just walk into oncoming traffic so you can continue your important heterosexual bants. But I can't see if there is oncoming traffic because they're standing next to a car parked, in the Belfast style, half on the pavement and half in the road. Also, in the Belfast manner, the car is enormous, so I can see nothing past it. I can't risk stepping into the road because I don't know whether I'll be mown down, and I'm not going to actually die to accommodate their conversation. I'm English, but I'm not that English. I'm in luck, anyway. As I approach I can see they're actually standing in the mouth of a driveway. I can get past them. 

I've got a silver quiff. I'm wearing skinny jeans and a stripy tee shirt. I'm suddenly aware that my trainers are making slight, kissy, sucking noises. I'm carrying a bottle of Fleurie in a Tote bag with an Agatha Christie quotation on it. I look a bit fancy next to these geezers, who are in Belfast standard-wear: three quarter length shorts, trainers, blotchy, green tattoos, like lichen creeping up their thick limbs. Their shins look like gravestones. There's been a lot of violence in Belfast lately - they're very keen on rooting out the "other" around here. Am I sufficiently other? I too am a middle-aged white man. But look at my sticky up hair, my handbag, my full length trousers - that'd be enough for a really angry bloke to just pick me apart. There's a lot of PTSD out there, a lot of free-as-a-bird murderers. I'm thinking of this as I go to pass them, a short side-step into the driveway, when suddenly, from nowhere, a small, incredibly furious dog goes for me, snarling and growling, and straining against the leash. 

"Jesus!" I say, "Fucking hell!"

It's an English accent. Different again. I'm practically hyperventilating now, as I squeak off in my sweaty pumps. A dog. Of course there was a dog. Why would a man from Belfast ever walk anywhere, unless he had to take his dog for a shit, which he would then not pick up. Of course. 

I make the decision to laugh. I was scared of their scrappy little dog. I swore. In a foreign accent. They have to know I have a good sense of humour. So I laugh. My heart is racing. Am I going to die of this? A dog induced heart attack? I fucking hate dogs. Evil, yappy little bastards. And you can't say that, can you? People think they're like hairy angels. But they're not. They're angry little psychos who would actually attack you if they weren't restrained with a rope around their necks. By now I was laughing properly, shoulders shaking, unable to stop, because my life is so ridiculous, and I imagined what those men saw: a camp, limping Englishman with a handbag full of wine, so scared by a dog that he was now laughing hysterically as a prelude to collapsing in the street. At which point none of them would lift a finger to help. I would have got what I deserved. It was natural justice. 

I didn't die. I went home. I drank the wine. Happy Publication Day. Susan was at work. 

I watched the film "Bullshot!" which I hadn't seen since I was a kid. 

It was terrible.