The Drinks Aisle Girl.

I like the girl on the drinks aisle in the supermarket. She’s unusually tall for a female, with long legs, a shy manner and a helpful disposition. Well you can imagine, can’t you? If there’s one person to whom I address more queries than anybody else, it’s the Drinks Aisle Girl.

‘Have you got any more special offer Grants in the back? The shelf’s empty.’

‘I’ll go and see.’

She comes back bearing two bottles.

‘How many do you want?’ she asks.

‘Are they on multi-buy?’

‘No.’

‘Just one, then.’

For the past few weeks I’ve been making my Wednesday Special beer choices from a whole rack full of weird and wonderful brews, some of which boast that they taste of honey, oranges, peppermint and other such noxious travesties, and the trick has been to find ones that claim no other taste than beer. (They’re all discounted, you see, and I like discounts.)

Today’s choice was B.Bock, which claims to be a strong Bavarian beer – and at 6.0% ABV, it probably is. I mused quietly to the Drinks Aisle Girl that I hoped it wasn’t required to wear lederhosen and stand on the table while drinking it. She looked at me strangely – probably, I assumed, because she didn’t know what lederhosen are. And I, needless to say, am far too much the gentleman to explain such things to a young woman of demure disposition. With legs as long as hers, she has a long way to fall, and I’m no longer in sufficient prime to make light work of catching young women.

Come to think of it, she usually regards me strangely. I suspect she thinks I’m weird, though not wonderful, but it’s difficult to tell with tall women. Body language is more difficult to read when you’re looking at it from an unfamiliar angle.