blog

The queue was getting bigger now, none of them obviously knew of my condition.  

My wife and I were in the supermarket this morning. Not Asda, the other one. We were at one of the self-checkout tills; there was a queue waiting to use these tills. We only had a couple of things. I place the first item on the scanner and it beeped. It told me to place the item into the bagging area. I did. Then I tried to scan the second item. It was a slab of fruitcake. The machine kept on saying “Scan the object, scan the object” and then I started talking to the till, saying “I have scanned the object”. It kept on saying “Scan the object, scan the object”. I then said, still talking to this machine and now getting a bit worked up, “I have scanned the object, you cretin!”. The till then said, “You need assistance”. 

Within seconds, a spotty faced assistant was by my side. “Having problems, are we?” he said.  He noticed my slab of fruitcake on the scanner. “I’m sorry,” I said; “I have dementia”. He then said “Ah, two fruitcakes eh?”. The queue was getting bigger now, none of them obviously knew of my condition. Until he turns to them and says, “Don’t worry folks, this chap’s got dementia. I’ll soon have him out of here.” With that he swipes his own card through the reader, places my cake in my bag, and as he turns to walk away he went ass-over-tit over a shopping basket that someone had foolishly left immediately behind him on the floor.  

My wife grabbed our shopping and we then walked out. Then Margaret says to me, “You think I should’ve put out the shopping basket in the racks provided rather than leaving it on the floor?” Well, we both went back to the car giggling like two school kids.

An audio version of this blog is available at: https://soundcloud.com/dementia-diaries/steve-2-nottingham-uni