A short story of someone "helping"

Superdrug. For anyone not in the UK – it’s a glorious place. Albeit – the aisles are tight, the lights have a funny yellow hue and my chair has an 80% chance of randomly setting the door alarm off (and yes I always pause at the door to prove I am just as shocked and as last time it went off). However, I forget all that because it’s full of glorious beauty and things that I don’t need but want.

So after work I decided to take a trip in and see what’s new in there. I take my time because I love looking at the skin care stuff and also because I crash into each tight corner – lol.

After finally deciding what I would like, I join the line at the till and raise my chair ready for the counter. If you don’t know, the tills are always super tall so I always feel a bit self conscious about that. But anyway, the staff member (let’s call her Barbara) says ‘next please’, looks up realises I’m down there and smiles. Lovely, we’ve got a good en.

I get my purse ready whilst passing my items up to the till. I get my Tesco shopping bag out because yes I’m #trying with being more environmentally friendly. I think we all can admit we feel a bit braggy when we say ‘I’ve got my own bag thanks’, well I do anyway. Barbara asks ‘would you like me to pack your bag?’. Well 10 points to Gryffindor – yes please!! Said bag below, which fits lovely on the arm of my chair. (oh and I recycled the pic sorry – snow meant no new pictures this week!)

Anyway, the staff member takes my bag and looks inside as she puts the first item in. We all look in don’t we, it’s natural isn’t it because we need to know where to put the items. However, the next 5 seconds were like curl toe cringe…

She then full on investigated my bag. I mean I’m talking shaking the bag to have a good look.

And she raised her eyebrows!

I could feel myself going bright red and all that time I was saying to myself ‘tell her to stop’ or ‘make a joke’ but I couldn’t bring myself to do it – ‘…after all she’s helping you’. I knew I had absolutely nothing in there to be embarrassed about – tissues, make up, purse, lip balm and a crispy roll to be precise.

When someone is doing a kind act for you then over steps the line like that, it feels so uncomfortable. I know it wasn’t super terrible, traumatic or anything to report but I do have a right to privacy and dignity. I honestly don’t know if she would have done that to someone else’s bag who would have been able to reach over and grab it off her. I don’t know, maybe I’m just being paranoid.

There’s no real moral of the story this week, I just wanted to let you know of Barbara’s cheek, that I couldn’t wait to get out of there and have my crispy roll before our Barbara ate it.