I was in the news agents the other day with a friend. (Not the most exciting opening sentence to a blog post but don’t be fooled, this story will be epic.) My friend needed to buy a pint of milk because he’d ran out of it and he wanted to make tea and eat serial and do other things that generally involve the need for milk (I told you it got more exciting.)
I waited for my friend in the queue at the counter as he went to get the milk. There were a few people in front of me and as we were in a bit of a rush – eager to get back to make tea and serial and do other things that generally involve the need for milk – we decided that I should wait in the queue while he quickly got the milk and then joined me in the queue with the milk. (A truly genius time saving master plan I’m sure you’ll agree. This blog is the place to come for time saving tips, although my best time saving tip for you would be that if you’re really serious about saving time then you should probably stop reading this time wasting blog.)
I heard my friend announce that he’d got the milk. This was perfect timing as we were next in the queue. This is when my blindness came into effect and thus an ordinary milk purchase got a bit unusual – teats up you might say, if you are the type of person who is sad enough to make milk based puns. I heard the shopkeeper say to the man in front of me, “So that’s one pint of milk”. “This must be Ben” I thought. I assumed he must have got the milk and joined me at the front of the queue. As I owed Ben a little bit of money, I decided that I was going to pay for the milk, so I said “I’ll pay for this” and handed the shopkeeper the money.
I then discovered that the man in front of me wasn’t Ben but a complete stranger. He made some kind of protestation in a very shocked voice. The shopkeeper, assuming that I was a friend of the man, accepted my money and handed the pint of milk to the man. The man went to protest again but his phone rang. He answers his phone and as he walked out the shop I heard him say, still sounding completely shocked, “I don’t believe it; the strangest thing has just happened to me!” His voice faded into the distance as he proceeded to tell his friend about the complete stranger who insisted on buying him his pint of milk.
There’s a very tiny chance that he’s reading this blog, but just in case he is I thought I’d provide him with an explanation of what happened. I thought you were my friend. Perhaps you should be my friend; you owe me a pint of milk mate!
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