Everything was going so well in my local Co-op. I’d gone in for vape juice, which they often run out of. I could see my preferred brand and I was having a comradely moment with the assistant, who is only too used to my crestfallen face when I have to make do with blueberry flavour. Then, right next to me, a man started to slither through the adjacent service hatch. The first I made of it was that the friction of his body against the counter was pulling his trousers down. I was close enough to see the whites of his pants, which were not that white. I thought: “That young man should really wear a belt next time he tries to hijack the till-cockpit of a Co-op.” Then: “NO WAY! That young man is hijacking the Co-op!”
He was wearing a face bandana, so he had at least got that far with his accessorising, and he yelled at the lady to get out from behind the tills, then let his two friends in. It was a classic in-through-the-trapdoor, open-the-drawbridge manoeuvre. The manager was on the phone to the police, saying in neutral tones: “Robbery in progress, robbers in the building,” as they piled cigarettes into three giant bags-for-life, which they had definitely stolen from their mums in advance. The planning was meticulous. We watched for a few seconds, fascinated. I asked the lady if she thought we should hide and she made a noncommittal noise that I have spent ages since deciphering. It was something in the realm of “they’re just kids, they’re probably not armed”; she is probably not paid enough to defend the cigarettes.
