Wile E. Chayote

I got in the car to go to the supermarket. It was rainy, so I flicked the wipers. It seemed the driver’s side blade was most ratty, and in need of urgent replacement.

My maps app told me Halfords in Cambridge was ‘temporarily closed’, but that the Newmarket branch was open, so I went there. It’s a 40-minute drive, and I hoped it wouldn’t rain too heavily so I wouldn’t have to use the wipers. I had to use the wipers.

In the shop, I had the usual trauma of which blades to get. Handily, they have a touchscreen where you put in your car’s details, and it tells you which ones to get. I had my own sanitiser with me, which was fortunate because they didn’t provide any. They seem to sell front ones singly now, whereas I’d always bought them in pairs. I suppose it makes sense because the driver’s side and passenger side blades aren’t necessarily the same length – mine aren’t – and the boxed pairs might not contain the right mix.

When I paid for the wiper blades, the fellow asked if I wanted them fitting. Pre-boat, I’d had to keep my blades in the boot to stop people helping themselves to my wipers, so I’d become something of an expert in removing and refitting them. So I said no. I think I’ve only changed them once or twice since then, so I couldn’t quite remember what to do. It came back to me after some faffing about. Just as well – the picture instructions on the boxes were useless.

After fitting the new wiper blades, I had all these old ones to deal with. I didn’t want to take them home, so I took them back in the shop. I thought they must have some proper sort of disposal method if they fit new ones for you. I found a pair of lads and waved the blades at them. I said I’d just bought new ones and asked them if it was cheeky to ask if they’d dispose of the old ones. One of them didn’t seem keen, but the other one said they could do that, and he took them off my hands. I left feeling pleased.

I went to Newmarket Tesco after that. I’d forgotten how big it was. They had an exotic fruit called a chayote. I thought I’d get one and see what it was like. It was priced by weight, and I do scan-as-you-shop, so I put it on the scales. It wasn’t listed, so I put it aside for someone at the checkout to deal with.

At the checkout, a lady came to my aid. She was mystified by the mysterious chayote. I told her I’d taken a picture of it (see image) because I kept forgetting what it was called. It wasn’t listed on the till, so she tried typing in the barcode number, usefully included in the photo. It came up as £0.00. The lady didn’t seem quite as pleased as I was by this price.

We realised it might be because she hadn’t put it on the scales, so she put it on the scales and typed in the number again. Still free. She tried the staff scales to see if they recognised it, but they did not. She started talking on her headset.

A lass came up then, asking if all was well. She saw what the problem was and had the answer. You had to take the chayote to the do-it-yourself checkout, which recognised the mysterious fruit, weigh it there to get the price, then pay for it separately at the staff till in the scan-as-you-shop section. So the lass took it to the do-it-yourself checkout and came back with a receipt for a cancelled purchase and the price of the item.

The lady was determined to include it with the rest of my shopping. She thought you could maybe enter the price manually. So she typed in the barcode number again, then tried to enter the price, but it would only take number of fruits, and it was still free. She gave up at that point, and said I’d have to pay for it separately at the end.

I paid for all of my shopping except the chayote, then went to join the lass at the staff till. I use Apple Pay nowadays so as to touch as few things as possible. (Apple Pay lets you pay contactlessly with a debit/credit card, but without the £45 transaction limit.) I think 47p is the smallest quantity I’ve ever used it for.

It rained all the way home. My new wipers wiped well.

I hope I like chayotes.