You know the situation.  You’re heading out for a walk; know you need a couple of bits of shopping for later; decide you will pop into your local Tesco on the way back home; but can’t be bothered to take your wallet, and so just stick a tenner in your pocket.

So, you’ve completed your walk, and you’re now heading home.  There’s Tesco ahead of you; there’s the tenner in your pocket.

You only need a few items; just a couple of things to complete the evening meal, and one or two extra odds and ends: a tin of refried beans; some sour cream; a couple of avocados––Mexican tonight––a punnet of strawberries; a couple of bananas; and, last minute, impulse buy, two small chocolate cup-cakes.

Mentally, you tot up how much you think it will all cost.  Nine pounds is your estimate.  You feel the tenner in your pocket.  All good.

You approach the counter; exchange a friendly greeting with the cashier; start packing your bag as the items are swiftly scanned and rung up on the cash till.  The total appears on the register.  You can scarcely believe it:

£9.99.

You can’t help but laugh.  You pull out your tenner, almost exultantly; show it to the cashier; waving it back and forth as you say, in near imitation of a Karma Police lyric:

“This is all I’ve got.”

You intend it to be an inclusive comment; to draw the cashier into your own private joke; to allow him to share your amusement and amazement that the cost of your purchases so precisely match the amount of money that you had randomly stuffed in your pocket when you had been heading out for a walk and you hadn’t wanted to carry your entire wallet with you.  You expect to see the cashier’s face suddenly wreathed in smiles but, instead, he looks only anxious.

He asks me if I have a Club Card.  I say “no”.  He looks more anxious:

“If you had a Club Card, it would reduce the cost of your shopping.”

I try to reassure him:

“It’s fine.  I’ve got a tenner.”  I wave it again, still on a ‘what a coincidence’ statistical high.

The cashier is still looking anxious after he takes my tenner and gives me a penny change, and it is not until after I leave the shop and am on the last short leg of my journey home that I realise how the discrepancy of emotions has arisen between us.

My “This is all I’ve got” had been intended as a light-hearted comment upon a mathematical improbability, whereas the cashier had interpreted my “This is all I’ve got” quite literally as a cost-of-living-crisis, factual statement about the apparent poverty of my situation.  His anxious expression had been an empathetic sympathy with my straitened circumstances; his suggestion that I should get a Club Card had been a simple practical way whereby I could make a small positive difference to my personal finances.

I resumed my walk home feeling rather guilty that I had left the cashier feeling so down-hearted.

I did also think, though, that if he had really wanted to offer me some helpful advice about saving some pennies on my food-shop, he should have told me to keep the tin of refried beans and the bananas, and dump the sour cream, strawberries, avocados and chocolate cup-cakes.

© Simon Turner-Tree

Simon Turner-Tree is a firm believer that if you count the pennies the pounds look after themselves.