Fifteen years ago. My little girl was a five year old rainbow, for you Americans daisy scouts. The leader arranged a trip to see behind the scenes at Asda our local supermarket where they got to see all the different areas where things got made. I was along for the trip as I was the local guide leader and one of the rainbow leaders couldn’t make the trip.

Everything is going well with three adults herding 15 rainbows dressed in blue tabards round the shop while they were all excited. The end of the trip was a go at the tills. Long before self service check outs. So a few random items were put on the conveyor belt and a herd of excited girls were allowed to turn it on and off and then with a sign on the check out saying closed and the one we used being at the end of the store only used when it’s Christmas.

I was doing my part of the shopper, aka returning scanned bits to the conveyor belt so the next girl could scan them. While the leader lifted them one at a time to sit on the checkout so they could scan the items. There was no way that this looked at all normal!

I then hear a huffing while I take a photo of my own daughter doing it. I turn to see a lady tapping her foot at me with her stuff on the conveyor belt at the other end. I say this till is closed, politely then look pointedly at my daughter giving the lady a confused look. Your checking out was her reply and while I looked shocked and amazed at her, The rainbow leader recovery was better than mine spoke to her with a perfect customer service voice, the rainbows are learning about how tills work as part of their jigsaw badge. Currently Asda do not employ five year olds to man the tills.

The woman storms off without her shopping and I understand made a complaint to customer services the next day about how rude we’d been. Strange that she gave her report to the rainbow leader without realising.

I still have the photo somewhere if needed.