Ah, I thought, just before heading to the checkout, I wonder if they have any ice-cube trays? Surely they must have, this supermarket is huge and has its own separate kitchen accessory department. But maybe it’s not in there.
Here, I’ll just ask this..
“Excuse me?”
..young, really hairy and quite peculiar looking man. He looked up from stacking a low shelf.
“Do you sell ice-cube trays? You know, for.. making ice-cubes.”
“Oh yeah probably do you want me to come and show you where?”
“No no, just point me in the right direction.”
He pointed.
“Over that way?”
“Yes about aisle 38 are you sure you don’t want me to come and show you?” his teeth seemed to reverberate when he spoke.
“No no, I’m sure I’ll be fine thanks.”
He scared me a bit.
I pushed my trolley down to aisle 38, which wouldn’t be it. Perhaps 40. Yes, this looked more like it.. But where. I trailed up and down an aisle of Tupperware. I couldn’t see it. There was another green uniformed man…
“Excuse me?”
This young man looked urgent and fraught and busy and redfaced. He stopped all the same.
“Do you sell ice-cube trays here? You know, for making ice-cubes in.”
“I don’t work in this bit. They keep moving stuff everywhere.”
He went and walked off down an aisle which homed crockery and cutlery, rather than the one we were standing in, which seemed appeared most likely. But what did I know?
“No,” he mumbled. “They keep moving stuff around. I don’t work in this section.”
“Dyou think you could find me someone who does work in this section?”
“Wait there.”
He scuttled away. I wasn’t hopeful of ever seeing him again. I hung out at the top of the Tupperware aisle with my trolley. It was a crap aisle. He didn’t come back.
I drifted downheartedly towards the adjacent clothes section. Last try. A middle-aged woman stood around but not at a checkout, looking spare. She wore a darker T-shirt which signified that she belonged to the clothes section.
“Excuse me,” I asked, hope flailing. “I don’t suppose you know where the ice-cube trays are kept?”
“Now,” she said. “Are they a band?”
I took a breath. Something inside me simmered, boiled, bloomed, ticked over. I breathed out.
“No. Doesn’t matter actually, thanks.”
I went to the checkout.
