Entering the heat chamber

I enter the heat chamber that is WH Smith in Stirling town centre occasionally. Occasions being to buy a Lotto ticket in the hope that tonight will be my lucky night and everything will be alright, to thumb the pages of Trail magazine before i decide if i'm going to spend £3.90 on it or to buy my car tax as this is now the location for our main post office since the old one was closed in Murray Place. Things happen every time I go into this heat chamber and one time, in the throws of exhaustion, jet lag, broken ribs and probably some sort of stomach bug it was even the place I managed to shame myself in public by fainting in the queue for the post office a few days after returning from Nepal! No-one else in the queue bothered to help me then either!! Miserables...

Anyway, the point of this rant is that another thing that happens without fail whenever I go in to by something is this. It goes 'beep' and it's the girl behind the counter scanning a useless voucher for either £10 off when you spend £50, £5 towards all your school supplies or £20 to spend with your first online order! This kind of annoys me a lot as more often than not she never actually gives me the voucher (which by the way i don't want anyway) or she gives me it and I leave it on the counter in protestation at this repetitive act of no real use. I mean, it's not her fault. She's been told to do it, much like the way she's told to ask if you want half price giant bars of Galaxy that are temptingly put in your eyeline by the tillpoint. In a previous life as a Saturday sales assistant, I too used to have to push useless stuff like american tan tights to old women when they bought £8 pairs of shoes from the Cheapo Shoe Shop I used to work in. It was torture for me as well as them but I knew the ones who would buy, the regulars, and would aim for them when pushing my £2 4-packs or black shoe polish. So I know the girl behind the counter must be forced to do this act of scanning and beeping the vouchers but i sooooo wish she wouldn't. One day I might say, "please young girl, do not scan the voucher, for I do not want it". Perhaps...

Ange xx