Supermarket Sweep- with the Coronavirus take your own trolley sanitizer

Supermarket Sweep

Ian Edward Davies always dreamed of doing something adventurous in his life.

That’s why he smoked Marlboro cigarettes.

At that very moment , he was stood in his wrangler jeans and cowboy hat in the middle of a roundup.

Unfortunately, he was not in the Mid West of the USA, but in the middle of the trolley park, at one of the superstores in Penygarnddu, Dowlais Merthyr Tydfil.

It was mid-March and as he was over 1000 feet above sea-level , high above the tree-line and even his Nan’s hand knitted willy-warmer wasn’t enough to keep his pipes from being frozen.

He found out to his cost last Winter, when he had to be snapped off a trolley, after urinating on it, because the store management said he had already taken his entitlement to toilet breaks.

He had received his first written warning for that one and his final one for telling people over the tannoy to leave the store immediately, as it was 4.01pm on a Sunday afternoon and they were in breach of Sunday Trading Laws.

He cursed his luck.

He was far too intelligent to be a ‘Trolley monkey’ but that was the only job he could get and he had only got that because the Job Centre Plus woman was too busy painting her fingernails to realise he had no ‘prior experience’ for the job.

There of course was a monkey in his act.

He had spent 4 years in Swansea College studying for a Degree course in
‘ Advanced Marionetting’.

He also had to ‘pull a few strings’ to finish that one.

He had planned to open his own stall on Barry Island promenade, to entertain the children in the Summer months.

Unfortunately, the politically incorrect brigade had objected to his character , Spank the Monkey, on the basis that ‘Richard & Judy’ style shows involved domestic abuse and animal cruelty.

He had spent months getting celebrity muppets prepared for the show and he had to throw out his Cheryl & Ashley, Ronnie & Barbie and OJ & Nicole.

He even got death threats from a woman in Scotland complaining about his reptilian character Crocodile Dundee.

Now his ‘education’ had cost him dear, as he owed the Student Loans people £30,000.00.

His puppet idea had cost him ‘an arm and a leg’.

He didn’t expect any kind of ‘hand-out’ or a ‘leg-up’.

He just wanted to be like everyone else and rip off the tourists.

After his trolley duties were over,he was obliged to go inside and clean out the toilets.

He was a relief member of the Aces & Asses team and would conveniently be called to the women’s toilets when someone had left a ‘McDonalds’ behind.

So called because it was an unflushable ‘quarter-pounder’.

He so often had his talented flexible arms around the u-bend that he thought he should have studied gynaecology instead.

Wiggling his fingers and moving his hand, he always managed to clear the blockage sometimes even without getting his hair wet.

He had all the ‘shit’ jobs.

He would often be called upon by the management to push a mop and brush around the aisles...but he had also to ensure that whilst the tiled floor was not slippery for ‘ shopping ‘clients’ or work ‘colleagues’.

It was during one of these mind-numbing duties that he hit upon a plan to get even with the bosses and write off his student debt in one hit.

The supermarket sweep decided then and there , that instead of becoming an ‘contortionist’ using his hands, he would become an extortionist using his brain.

He would hit the ‘capitalist’ bosses where it hurt most in the trouser pocket.

He began to plan with military precision his tactics.

As he sat cutting out the words from the local Merthyr Depress newspapers and OK magazine...his young fresh student mind plotted revenge on the hierarchy of the supermarket that had treated him so badly by calling him ‘Muppet’.Davies.

They didn’t realise what crime they were ‘Kermitting’

His first warning contained the threat that he had contaminated a single jar of baby food in the store with ground glass.

He was just about to lick the envelope then realised that he would leave DNA.

He picked up the finished warning letter and carefully ‘prit-sticked’ the word ‘CHE’ at the end as his rebellious signature.

After all ‘Che’ (ryl Cole) was always in some magazine or other every week so he would have plenty of material.

Clad in surgical gloves he was careful not to leave any fingerprints as he posted the letter.

It read: ‘Unless you want your customer’s children ‘to cut’ some more teeth....leave £30,000.00 in unmarked bills in Trolley Hut number 3 at 9.30 pm this Friday Night’....Che.

When the letter landed on the desk of the Store General Manager George Lidell, he didn’t believe it was genuine.

As a token gesture, he sent one of his employees to check the baby food section to see if any of the lids had been tampered with.

He found one with more sand in it than Barry Island (which coincidently was where it came from).

George began to be concerned.

Did he go to the Police and risk a panic at his store and lose profits into the bargain.

Or did he keep this under wraps and try and deal with it himself.

He knew if the press or the public got wind of this it would devastate his profit margins and shift his customers to the local competition.

He decided to keep a watch on Trolley Hut number 3 using a telescope from his office to see who hung around the place.

No-one ....except for the usual trolley-monkies, rounding up the strays to prevent them from denting customers cars or being used as cheap skateboards by the children of Dowlais Top.

The Bay ,like the yellow grit box next to it –was completely empty.

His peace was shattered by a thump on the door.

It was some woman from Rhymney complaining that her 18 month year-old was eating ‘sandwiches’ made from real sand.

She wiped the floor with him and threatened to go to the Environmental Health over the Food Safety Act.

He eventually calmed her down by giving her 6 months free supply of nappies (all in the same size) in exchange for her ‘co-operation’.

He explained that there was a huge tidal wave at the place where the baby food was made in Malaysia and that the factory had been hit by a ‘dune wave’ in the tsunami.

There wasn’t a ‘grain’ of truth in the story.

But just like the baby she swallowed it.

He was however, obliged to recall the whole baby food section for further investigation.

This had cost him time effort and a great deal of annoyance.

“ Sir....Rob the Meat, just found a huge turd....in a yellow tub in the dairy section!” said the worried employee Steve Cox-Pippin.

“ I have been here since the place opened and I have never seen one like that before....he opened the lid and ‘couldn’t believe it was not butter’. he continued.

“ Oh and HR told me this came for you this morning!”

George looked at the envelope...it had a tell-tale Merthyr Tydfil postmark.

He knew already who it was from before he opened it with his silver letter opener.

“ Did you think I was ‘kidding’....the ‘job’ is not yet done....the price keeps going up ...now I want £40,000.00....like your dairy section ...you can like it or lump it....CHE!”

George decided he had to act quickly before the press got ‘wind’ of the size of the problem.

He sent the turd to Headquarters by special courier to be ‘analised’ for DNA.

****

As he sat down in his office after a sleepless night, HQ rang him.

He could not believe it ....the turd was DNA matched to him via his company records.

How was this possible?...George thought.

There must be a mistake .....or had someone managed to fish out a floater from his luxury personal office toilet?

He felt like Miss Marple trying to piece together the evidence to solve a crime, the only difference was he smelt of expensive DVB cologne and not lavender and piss.

Yes , he would outsmart the culprit and ‘flush’ him....for it had to be a man.... out into the open.

His desk phone suddenly rang.

It was a reporter from the Merthyr Depress.

“ I just spotted a ‘foreign body’ on Facebook...apparently one of your employees has found a turd that looks like Jesus in amongst the butter section....any comment?” said reporter Jean Hackman.

“ Well it is Easter....anything can happen.....suffice to say we are going through the motions to investigate the matter.....while your on...if you agree not to mention this unsavoury incident in the paper this week....I will offer you the exclusive opportunity to meet interview celebrity presenter Dale Winton and children’s entertainer Matthew Corbett at our Easter Trolley dash competition on Good Friday ....” said George.

“ I think we have cracked it....I will let the ‘turd’ slide....see you Friday!” said Jean putting down the phone.

George was worried....he would have to discipline whichever staff member who had tried to sell out the story to the press.

Looking at the picture on facebook , George remarked that the lid did have ‘Turin shroud’ like qualities .... Jesus indeed...the turd did have a bit of a beard though.....

Come to think of it, he was expected to ‘shit miracles’ by the Company, year on year.

“ Mr Currybum....it is not part of Company policy to take photographs of foreign items with your mobile phone and put it on facebook......’facebook’ was intended for people without jobs or lives.....the quarter of the population of Wales who do not wash or have any real friends or a life of their own....the kind of customers who can’t afford to shop at this store.....here’s your written warning....keep your ‘nose’ out of other people’s ‘jobs’ said George to his cowering employee.

“ We need to keep a lid on it!....or you will be the first in the firing line....when it comes to redundancy.!” said George pretending he was Alan Sugar and waving a sack at his apprentice .

As the employee slid out of the room, George flicked off his speaker phone which had been rigged up to the tannoy system and we relayed by headset into each of the colleague ‘rest’ rooms.

George liked everyone in his store know who was the boss.

**************************************************

Ian Edward Davies sat in the staff canteen area tried to thaw out his fingers on a radiator, as he listened to the ‘bollocking’ he was smirking on the inside, being careful not to reveal any emotion on his face .

Secretly he was happy with the way events were unfolding.

His delicate hands were blue with cold, as they were used to being protected inside warm puppets.

Inside his heart was beating warmly, safe in the knowledge his plan was working.

Tonight he was inside and he was to put in place the fourth stage of his plan that would change his life forever....one way or another....

After setting the CCT cameras to play rather than record Ian Edward Davies set about lifting a certain section of tile on the floor in the superstore and leaving behind in the aisle a nasty surprise ‘in store’ for the unwary.

He had noticed from the staff newsletter that conveniently the winner of the Trolley dash was one of the store regulars (who co-incidentally spent most of her monthly income in store on food).

Her name was Mama Snickers.

She had since she was aged three , gorged her way over three decades on more chocolat than Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp.

Mr Thornton and Mr Cadbury had shares in her.

She had lost the last of her adult teeth at 10 and weighed a colossal 36 stone (measured on two avery scales simultaneously).

When she got on a machine that spoke her weight ...it said one at a time please!

Ian Edward Davies knew for certain she would waddle her way to the chocolate aisle.

Ian Edward Davies knew tomorrow would be her last mars bar ever.

As he loaded the Improvised Explosive Device into the floor IED held the IED in his sweaty palm , he also held his breath as the home-made explosives he had ordered on the internet from a cave in Helmond Province was made from Afghan Camel shit and was extremely vola’tile’.

As he lowered the detonator into the ground he found it hard to flatten the camel shit into position ....no sooner had he patted down one lump than the other hump rose up...it started to get his back up....and he wanted to spit at the thing....but in the end it fell into place.

Standing in the front entrance of the superstore stood Matthew Corbett.

He had all his life lived in the shadow of his father Harry H Corbett who had invented the puppet characters Sooty & Sweep amongst others.

Now due to political correctness he didn’t receive many bookings from the North of England and nobody needed a ‘sweep’ as no-one had a chimney or coal fires (anymore other than the people of Coronation Street).

As he put on his puppet show for the excited four and five year old Gurnos pre-gangstas sat with cross legs , cross eyes and miniature cross bows firing plastic arrows at Corbett as he struggled to keep his mini audience interested in his act.

“ Why has that man got his hand up a bear’s arse?” asked little Mitcher Bunko to his pal Donald Veto was too busy scratching his head-lice ridden head to concentrate on a furry bear.

“ Is he that bloke that hangs around the Gurnos Park.....Pete O’Fail’ ?” Don replied in soprano voice....not high pitched but like a New York mobster....” If so I want to make him an offer he can’t refuse!”.

Beneath the curtain of the Punch & Judy tent, Corbett was reaching down frantically feeling around for his missing puppet.

If Social Services had witnessed the way the tent curtain was moving suspiciously the children would have placed on the at risk register.

“ I know I am in Merthyr Tydfil....but some little bastard has pinched my children’s Sweep.....and covered my free hand in red dye into the bargain!” he raged at the audience.

“ We haven’t had used children as chimney sweeps for over last ten years now!” shouted the New Labour Mayor Gerry Mander.

His father had always told him like all true stage professionals that the show must go on or else he would feel the back of his hand.

Corbett raised his bear hand containing Sooty next to his bare hand missing Sweep.

“ Look Sweep is in the nude!” shouted little Mitcher Bunko ringing child line on his speed dial on his unprotected ‘Wi-Fry’ mobile phone.

The scene had children crying....some hands over their eyes....others like Don Veto laughing like drains.

The store management weren’t happy, but tried to distract the audience by announcing that Supermarket Sweep legend Dale Winton had arrived at the rear of the store.

Dale always preferred to come through the tradesman’s entrance , as he avoided the crowd and the resultant pushing.

Mama Snickers too was nervous at the prospect of meeting a ‘lunchtime legend’ in the flesh.

As she shook his oily hand she realised that he used fake tan all over.

She recognised the colour as being ‘Orange Wednesday’.

As store manager George Liddell hand over the golden trolley, watching on the sidelines was Ian Edward Davies.

He had spent so much time looking after the trollies they were like his children.

They each had names like the rodeo bulls in Calgary, Killer Taurus, the Widowmaker, Death-Trap.... as most had in the store had a wonky wheel which would unbalance the driver.

The killjoy management had taken away those trollies with lower bars so that parents couldn’t ride on them too.

However, ‘Old Bronko’ was different it was wide enough to accommodate Mama Snickers in her ‘marathon’ dash but thin enough to prevent her getting wedged in the narrow ‘cheap item’ aisles and the resulting camera shot (You Tube or Facebook.).

As Dale cut the ribbon her three minutes started with a bang.

The store management had cleverly repositioned the expensive items at the far end of the store up high on the top shelves just in case.

Ian Edward Davies knew exactly which aisle she would head for.

The Richter Scale took a bashing in Dowlais, as Mama thundered her way like a supreme athlete , ‘Phil ‘the Power’ Taylor towards Confectionary aisle 24...

As Mama reached her chocolate Heaven , she sideswiped a whole row of Toblerone into her metal steed and started clear the shelf in a linear fashion.

Twix, Bounty and Flakes flew everywhere as her preferred ‘topics’ of choice.

As soon as she cleared the one section she moved onto the next, flabby bingo winged arm outstretched like a ‘close-line’ reminiscent of Mickey Rourke in the Wrestler.

There was more ‘wattle’ than a whole clucking Bernard Matthews factory.

As she reached the end of the row, student Ian Edward Davies (the uni-bomber) nearly gave the game away by putting his fingers in his ears as her tremendous weight triggered the pressure pads full of Afghan camel shit .

There was a split second delay and then a huge ‘Kabul’ sound as the force of the explosion rocked the building.

As the dust cleared , tree sparrows fell dead from their perches high up in the rafters of the superstore as all around Mama Snickers food, rained down like chocolate rain from outer space.

Mars went into orbit with the Milky Way Galaxy.

But Mama Snickers didn’t move an inch.

Like the Titanic she was unsinkable and just chomped out into the air at the falling confectionary...like a Hippo eating River plants.

Unfortunately for Store Manager George Lidell the nightmare was not over.

The resulting tremor had hit the Pizza Counter and the massive shelves ‘topping’ heavy began to tumble in sequence knocking down its neighbour in the adjacent aisle as the ‘Domino effect’ took hold.

Rob the Meat, manning the CD counter, nearly got the ‘chop’ as the huge ‘food tsunami’ chased him across the store....with him ending up in Ladies underwear.

Ian Edward Davies or IED as he was now known smiled on the inside as he put into action stage four of his plan.

“ Mr Liddell Sir....this came for you this morning! he said handing the store boss the brown envelope....I ’am sorry, I forgot to give it to you with all the commotion.!”

On another day Davies would be on report or sacked but today George had bigger problems.

As he opened the envelope he knew instantly that the blackmail price had like his store just gone up.

He read silently.

‘£50,000.00 Trolley Hut number 3 in one hour...in used notes....no tricks....or else...your store will have more ‘Lost Profits’ than a Pontypridd rock group..’

Cher.

As he read the newspaper cutting with an extra ‘R’ in a state of paranoia he even thought for a minute , that the plastic surgeon loving Hollywood star might be the culprit behind the campaign.

He had no option but to meet the demand except he tried to double ‘blue’ cross the extortionist by telephoning the Police on the mobile phone of Rob the Meat.

They agreed to roadblock the area and hide a motorcycle behind the illegal potato van parked on the Roundabout.

The ‘Peeler’ would make sure that the criminal would have his ‘Chips’ one way or another.

As the £50,000.00 (with invisible red ink marking), was loaded by Steve Cox-Pippin into the agreed marked trolley (Aberdeen Angus) in the last ever biodegradable carrier bag .

Cox-Pippin set off to deliver his ransom to the trolley bay.

With £50,000.00 in his trolley he thought twice about making a run for it himself as it was a decade’s salary of a ‘shelf-stacker’ but as he caught sight of the Police biker he changed his mind.

He just kept ‘stonewalling’ it and kept a ‘false face’ on till he reached Trolley Bay 3.

He noticed however, with his trained eye for detail that the lid on the grit box was slightly ajar.

As he backed away the tension mounted.

It was like an Iranian embassy siege as all official eyes were trained on the trolley.

George Lidell looked on from his telescope ...one eye closed watching and waiting for the blackmailer to show himself.

As his flexi-clock ticked to exactly 10.00am the trolley moved sideways in the hut.

The metal floor suddenly collapsed and as if by magic a strange furry creature appeared from the top of the yellow grit box disappearing below with the money.

“ I don’t believe it !!!!” said George lowering the telescope and revealing a brown ring of Afghan camel shit around his left eye......

” Talk about a Supermarket Sweep’ he stuttered disbelievingly.

“ Get a warrant for the arrest of Matthew Corbett....!” bellowed the Store Manager...we need to catch him ‘red-handed’.

*****

As he surfed his way on the plastic ‘display only’ Italian style pizza advert, Ian Edward Davies smiled to himself as he flew down the Morlais Brook sewers passed the ‘floaters’ towards Waterloo House.

He had got ‘clean away’.

He had visions of his boss working out how he had escaped ‘Italian log’ style.

As he threw the money up into the air wildly....he shouted “ Who’s the Muppet now!”.