Slice of fruit cake

Hands up those people who love supermarkets. Not many people, eh?

I've never been particularly keen on them so being an employee of one is a bit twisted.

But there's twisted and then there's seriously disturbed, and we had someone like that in recently. I'm not sure how to describe her except that she's the antithesis of me and the classic example of a certain sort of middle-aged woman who has all the substance of a fog.

Everything about her is limp, washed out and insubstantial. Her clothes somehow conspire to be of no particular colour or style; her hair is some non-descript shade of mousy, her complexion is dough with a superficial layer of peach and her voice is as ethereal as a gentle breeze over a river. She is the sort of woman who is never ill-tempered but always the victim of some turn of fate or mischance; she has a faint and plaintive voice which, when she is thwarted, merely becomes fainter and more exhausted*.

The previous day the Chip'n'Pin system fell over (again) and we had resorted to the ZipZaps (the old manual card swipe machines which require the card to be inserted under a voucher so that an imprint can be made). Ordinarily we obtain a manual authorisation - that involves taking the card into the back office to make a telephone call and get permission to proceed with the transaction on that card. We were doing that and so took her card for that purpose.

She'd come in to speak to The Sex Pest who, she claimed, she'd been told she could speak with. Except the Sex Pest was on Leave and not expected in; no one would have told her he'd be available to speak with.

She explained that she wanted to complain about her card being taken from her for authorisation. I tried to explain that it was policy, standard procedure but she wasn't having any of it...

She then claimed that she'd had her card cloned in our store ... eight months earlier.

NOW - no one has ever said anything to me about a single card being cloned ... no rumours of allegations to that effect have ever reached my ears. I asked her to repeat her allegation and she did. I put to one side my incredulity ... I mean to say would YOU continue to shop regularly at a shop that had cloned your credit or debit card?

I asked her what made her believe that her card had been cloned and that the cloning had happened in our store.

She assured me that the bank had told her, but she then added that the bank hadn't been able to tell her exactly when. Except your bank can tell you ... to the second.

The poor old dear is clearly a complete crack-pot. It's sad really. She's completely lost the plot, and is certifiably as nutty as a fruit cake.

It is of no particular comfort to me that she's a senior teacher at my daughter's school.

*Yes, I have cribbed the text of this sub-clause from an author. I couldn't better described the woman.