Friday, October 20, 2006

Grand Theft Auto

The town we're in is almost but not quite an overgrown sea-side retirement village. It isn't quite Frinton : it is possible to buy ice-cream or which ever frivolity it was Frinton pursued a one-town crusade against.

On the other hand the footpaths can upon occasion be a place of hazard for pedestrians, thanks to the geriatric Sterling Moss-types who get about in electric-powered sit-on scooters (mobility carts), like golf buggies or lawn mowers without blades.

Some days the footpath outside the store is almost impassable for these cumbersome vehicles parked up haphazardly by the entrance, often with some yappy creature on sentry duty in the basket or on the seat.

Recently we had an incident of buggy theft ... the mother-in-law of one of the town's best known characters could be seen on footage from one of the external camera to drive up and park her buggy under the canopy. In the final frame all that could be seen was the very last traces of the string bag at the back of the buggy. We could see her on the store CCTV wandering up and down the aisles and then coming to the customer service desk to report that her buggy wasn't where she left it.

The external camera also captured a notorious drunk (and known buggy user) reversing out from under the canopy; knowing where he lives he was pursued and he insisted that the buggy in his possession was his own; we've no grounds to assert otherwise.

Pointless post really except that running about after the old dear and reviewing CCTV footage and running after the suspected thief and getting the police in and reviewing the CCTV footage with them took up an awfully big part of that day.

Once again we were more 'drop in centre for the aged' than hard-nosed commercial outfit.

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