Bunfight at the OK Leclerc

St Stanislas

There we were, standing in the checkout queue, minding our own business and checking that everything had a bar code - it's always us, by the way, the people who have just one item, usually the last one left in the shop that doesn't have a bar code on it - when there was a scuffle at the next aisle.

We looked up to see two ladies (I use the term loosely) glaring at each other across a trolley. Suddenly one grabbed a packet of cakes and hit the other around the head with them.

The packet burst and cakes scattered through the air and landed all over the checkout.

I remember thinking to myself what a good thing it was that the cakes were individually wrapped.

The checkout hostess looked on bemused and stood ready to make a run for it should things get any dirtier - after all, who knows it might have been that bag of mussels from the fish counter next!

The women shouted at each other and then one left.

The lady in front of us turned to explain what had been happening. Had we not been so engrossed in the bar codes, we would have seen it all for ourselves. One had left her trolley momentarily, just back from the line, to slip off to the cheese counter for a packet of something exceptionally smelly. Meanwhile, the other, wanting to join the queue and not seeing the owner of the abandoned trolley, joined the line. The other 'this young one', the raconteur continued, came back to the trolley and tried to ram her way in front of the older shopper. Obviously things didn't finish there and as the first finished her shopping, the second rammed her trolley again and accused the first of queue jumping.

The gentleman in the queue behind them nodded and an amused smile twitched the corners of his mouth as the checkout hostesses discussed what had happened.

'You wouldn't see a couple of men behaving like that' our checkout lady said, laughing.

She's obviously never shopped in Asda then.