A Trip to the Supermarket (Tesco’s) After Work! By Mr Alfred N.Muggins Part 1

Monday 16/1/23 (written 18/1/23, 4/2/23, 24/4/23)

    After a trying intense day at the new job, which had proved a lot more difficult than he thought it would, he was finally allowed out, later than the half past 4pm on his work schedule, as he was on a call. The call inevitably ran over time (as many of them did if there was any complexity to them), but it could have been worse (or longer) he supposed.

    His car had been held at the garage over the weekend as the MOT could not be completed on Friday, as the correct part had not arrived in time, but it should be completed today on the Monday, and hopefully Mrs Muggins (his servant, wife and agent!) would have picked up the key from the garage before closing time, and paid his bill for him, so that he would be able to drive the car away from the roadside outside the garage after closing time. So Mrs Muggins was picking him up from Tesco’s car park after work. The Supermarket was just across the busy road from his new workplace.

    He went out into the frozen weather, from the warm and spacious, and yet in a sense claustrophobic office floor, where he had been enslaved, in a modern sort of way, all day. He had not exactly been chained to his desk, but he might as well have been!

    Crossing the busy traffic filled road at the crossing point he walked up the stairs into the large Supermarket, and to the top level entrance where Mrs Muggins would meet him and whisk him off to the freedom of home.

    But it wasn’t to be that simple (or perfect!). He called her on his mobile and she was not there yet. She was a couple of miles away, but was on her way, so he waited, desperate to eat one of the sandwiches from his work day, which he had not yet eaten, as his appetite seemed to disappear in this new workplace due to the tension of the job and the minimal time available for breaks. He did not touch it yet because it took two hands to open the clicked on lid on his sandwich box, which would be rather awkward to do in a public place, such as Tesco’s Supermarket doorway, and while standing up. He wasn’t going to wait outside in this frozen weather either!

     Mrs Muggins would arrive soon enough, and after a day of hard work he was happy to stand vacantly, watching people and basking in the relative freedom from work. She phoned him when she arrived in the top car park, outside the entrance where he waited, typically not getting out of the car to find him.

    He went out, phone in hand, and searched for her, finding the car easily enough in the quickly freezing car park. Some surface moisture was likely to turn to Black Ice he determined, cautiously negotiating his way across it so he would not slip.

    He knew she wanted to go shopping at Tesco’s, seeing as she had come all the way here to pick him up. He was not quite so enthusiastic, as he was feeling rather drained after a Hard Day’s Work at the new job, which was proving rather difficult, as well as tiring! Really he would have liked to be whisked straight home to the comforts of TV and his own imagination.

    Well, why not? It did seem like a logical idea, and shopping here would make a nice change from shopping at one or the other of the other stores they often frequented. They had shopped here before a couple of times in recent years, just for the hell of it, for a change, but it was hardly on their doorstep normally, so to speak! He had to concede it seemed like a good idea, although he hoped it wouldn’t take too long, and they would get home soon (and pick up his MOT’d car from outside the repair garage!)

    First Mrs Muggins invited him to sit in the car with her. She had received a text communication from her number 2 son (son in law Karaoke Tsar Star, who worked at the place he was now working, and who had encouraged him to apply for the new job, although he hadn’t told him how difficult it was going to be!) He was finishing half an hour after Alfred, but was now on his way to meet up with them at Tesco’s too to catch his lift home. So they would sit in the car for a few more minutes and wait for him to arrive. Then they could all go shopping together or at the same time. Alfred began to suspect this was all going to take rather longer than he had hoped, but he was grateful for the chance to eat his remaining sandwich from the day, before Karaoke Star arrived.

    A phone call came in to Mrs Muggins’ phone, Karaoke Star was in Tesco’s! “Where are you?” he asked his mother.

    “We will see you in the shop,” she said.

    They left the car and walked across the freezing car park, back into the shop. As Alfred was rather concerned about the ice he was some way behind his wife, who was looking forward to the shopping and to meeting up with her son, with whom she had a close bond. When Alfred got into the warmth of the shop he couldn’t see either of them, so he wandered into the large store, confident he would locate them sooner or later. He soon came across his wife naturally tending to be drawn towards the part of the shop which sold all sorts of things which were not food.

     He hoped this was not going to turn into one of those long shopping expeditions where his wife got carried away, looking at everything except the food products they had actually come her to buy. He was concerned about time in particular, because now he was in the new job, he had very little of it any more. The new job took up long working hours in the day, and in the evenings he was now always tired and drained by the difficulties of the new job, and the evenings passed by even quicker, ending with the obligatory making of sandwiches for the next enslavement day at the new job. He hoped this shopping expedition would not take too much of his precious recovery time off him.