Do you eat them raw, like fruit?

Isn’t technology great. You can find out information about anything you like in a second (which may or may not be true). You can buy a cheap item of electronic equipment (which may or may not be genuine). And you can chat to someone you’ve never met in a foreign country (who may or may not be who they say they are).

But before I’m accused of being negative about technology, or ‘tech‘ as irritating people in odd-looking spectacles would say, it does make the world a better place. We’re all connected. We’re all within easy reach of each other. Information passes more easily and freely (unless you happen to live somewhere beginning with ‘C’ and ending in ‘hina’). Life is easier.

And most importantly, I don’t have to go shopping for food in supermarkets and deal with the surprises I usually encounter.

A few little clicks, and a chatty man arrives at my door the next day with all of my food in boxes. Okay, some items may be larger/smaller than I intended, or more squashed than I might have anticipated, but then I can replace those when I pop to the greengrocers or the butchers or the bakers (sadly Chipping Sodbury has, so far as I can tell, no candle-makers).

But I have been too busy lately to click, and had to venture in this morning. On my own. On a Sunday.

‘Do you need help with your packing?’ asked the boy operating the till, who I noted had the chair as high as it could go so he could reach the buttons.
‘No, I’ll be okay. Just go slowly’, I cordially replied.
This, the till-boy must have taken to mean, ‘Hi, that’s fine. Please talk to me instead. I want you to be my friend’.
‘That’s okay. I can’t do anything quick today. Bit of a night of it last night…’, he continued, but at this point my ears were temporarily bombarded by till-boy’s attempts to inhale deeply through a nose filled with enough snot to paint the Severn Bridge.
‘Oh dear’, I reply… desperately aware that I’m sounding like Hugh Grant.
‘Got a coffee machine have ya?’, he asks manboy-handling my coffee.
‘No. Just a jug with a plunger’, I reply deciding now is not the best time to explain the concept of a cafetiere.
‘Oh right… is it just smaller granules? I s’pose I should know that working here’, he chuckled.
He then continued to scan the items, being genuinely helpful and slow.
‘What do you do with these?’, he asked holding up by bag of red chillies, ‘do you eat them raw, like fruit?’
I think at this point I may have choked, making a similar noise to someone who has just tried eating a hot red chilly raw, like a fruit.
‘Nah, it’s for putting in curries and stuff’, I reply in my new found role as the product of morphing Delia Smith with Jamie Oliver. Please note, in my split-second reaction I made a conscious decision not to say ‘curries and chilli’.
‘Oh right. I think we used the in school once… my teachers were great, never minded be bunking off and stuff…’ he tailed off shortly after, before offering me the vouchers the supermarket encourage parents to collect to enhance their child’s education.

And as I left the store and it’s warm orangey glow, I was determined to make sure I stick to the clicking and the cheery delivery guy, but now, a few hours later, I’m not so sure. It’s given me something to talk about today, and normally, buying Shreddies, Wheetabix and washing liquid doesn’t offer much to talk about…