I particularly like the self-checkout at our store. I don’t have to queue or make small talk with the cashier if I’m that way inclined. I can whizz in and out at my leisure. Or so I thought.

The Teenager in particular likes the self-checkout, bipping her way through the shopping and then shoving my crisp notes into the feeder.

So on Friday, faced with a long queue, I suggested we do it ourselves. I said I would put the wine through the scanner as it would be illegal for her to do it. I scanned the wine. The obligatory alarm went off for the cashier to look over, scan my mother of two, sleep deprived, lived in face and press a magic button so we could move on.

Except he didn’t. He looked at me, at The Teenager, at me, at The Teenager. I rolled my eyes and said “You have got to be kidding me?” He shook his head.

Realising that there was absolutely no way on this earth he was going to accuse me of being under 18 and having endured a day at work, doing the school run and picking up The Teenager I’d had enough.

“I am 32 years old, my stepdaughter is 14, this wine is quite obviously for me!” I announced in an angry somewhat sarcastic tone.

All the time I was thinking “If I was buying alcohol for a 14 year old I certainly wouldn’t be buying a nice Cabernet Sauvignon, surely it would be some form of vodka based alcopop?”

I realised that the large queue to my right were now scrutinising my eye wrinkles laughter lines and displeased face.

The cashier continued to look us up and down to the deep sighs of the people waiting to be served. He then, somewhat reluctantly, pressed the magic button which meant we could continue bipping our shopping

Bip, bip, bip, bip.

My next problem came in the form of a large cucumber. Once scanned, the screen said ‘UNIDENTIFIED ITEM’ and the alarm went off again.

I had to wield a cucumber at the man whilst shouting across the store “It’s a cucumber” and in my head “If you don’t press that bloody button I will thrash you about your person with it”. Thankfully he pressed it before I could act on my thoughts.

Just as I was foraging in my purse for money another bloody alarm sounded and the words ‘UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA’ started flashing on the screen.

It turns out, the Teenager was the unexpected item, she was leaning on the frame too hard. I said to the man “The unexpected item is my Teenager!”.

By the time we’d finished the long queue to my right had gone, the cashier was still looking at me questioningly, probably wondering which mental institution I was on day release from, and I guiltily said goodbye.

Guiltily because I had lied … I had told him I was 32. I am 31.

When having an argument with your husband/wife about what someone has or has not just said on Spooks, being able to rewind it to prove the other person wrong

The downside of Sky+

When I got home on Sunday afternoon from my weekend away with work the 5 year old proudly told me she had watched I’m a Celebrity with the teenager that morning which was recorded the evening before. But, that wasn’t all, she had seen a kangaroo willy and some testicles which were crunchy.

Lovely.

Note to husband : I do believe that program is on after the 9pm watershed for a reason. Just because it is watched during daylight hours does not make it acceptable. If that was the first thing she wanted to tell me about her weekend when I returned home, imagine the sentence and picture she will draw in her ‘what I did at the weekend’ book at school.