Buying Quiche - with a smile.

Christine Cuddihy wanted to buy a slice of quiche, but checkout staff at Tesco, Cannons Park, Coventry thought otherwise and demanded identification before allowing her to take such a dangerous thing home.

In amongst the comments area beneath DM's article are a whole bunch from East Anglia - an excellent skit when put together in sequence. Whoever wrote them should be a script writer!

First :-

While this may seem laughable and ridiculous to alot of people I feel I must point out why I think this happened. Quiche is a very high fat food and young people aren't always the best judge of what is and isnt good for them. The lady here must have looked young to the cashier and some shops do have an obligation to stop people under 21 from buying things that are bad for them.

I used to run a convenience store and would ID anyone who wanted more than 2 bars of chocolate. Weight gain can run away with a young person and its up to the older members of society to try to protect them.
- 2/2/2010 15:35

Naturally there were many negative responses, but in the best tradition of Music-Hall, just one or two were singled out as being worthy of further comment  :-

To Cas: I feel I have a responsibility to steer youngsters in the right direction and that direction is not straight towards a giant quiche and a packet of toffee bonbons. I always looked at what my customers were buying and would comment if anything was too unhealthy for them. Obviously if they were over 21 I'd have to sell it to them but I was very careful about monitoring the younger ones.

I think its a good thing to do!
- 2/2/2010 15:51

and

Hello to Jo Jo, you have made me smile as i'm sitting here eating my homemade flapjack. Yes it was quite a bit like Fawlty Towers in that I tried to exercise a bit of control over my lovely customers. Well, more concern than control. I gave out loyalty cards to people buying healthy items and once they had bought 10 they were given a free tin of peas.
Similarly, if a customer repeatedly bought unhealthy goods I would take note and then hand them a leaflet about Weight Watchers-the look of embarassment would be so telling! I knew that from that moment on they would be health food addicts.
Ah it was a lovely time, I do miss it.
- 2/2/2010 16:55

Of course vociferous DM readers don't like evidence of people being treated like children, especially not for something trivial, but this commenter (is there such a word?) points out :-

I find it pretty ironic that i'm getting ridiculed and red arrowed for my comments and yet the article which ran last week about Tesco banning people wearing pyjamas received nothing but praise and admiration. If Tesco wants a dress code that is fine, and if I wanted to limit who I sold certain goods to then that should be fine too...so why isn't it?
- 2/2/2010 20:59

No answers?

So along comes the punchline, which would make Andy Burnham proud!

I dont understand all the negativity and red arrows! Some customers even told me they'd managed to lose weight and get healthy thanks to my 'moderation' policy.

More shop workers should give it a go, yes it affects your profits but what's more important- money or a healthy nation?
- 2/2/2010 20:21

Good job it's a joke.

Pyjamas and fluffy slippers.

Having identified All Day Pyjama Syndrome (ADPS) in 2003, and a couple of years after a school asked parents to wear day clothes when delivering their children, a Tesco store has decided to ban shoppers who are wearing pyjamas or other nightwear.

It seems unreal, but the BBC says so, and so do the Mail and Guardian, so it must be true.

The lady chosen to be spokeswoman for the nightie-wearing folk of the St Mellons area of Cardiff could, probably, have been chosen more wisely because she complains that

"I think it's stupid really not being allowed in the supermarket with pyjamas on.
"It's not as if they're going to fall down or anything like that. They should be happy because you're going to spend all that money." 

Ah, so she thinks a shop should never turn away a customer, it doesn't matter how they're dressed - it's all about taking money.

Apparently some pyjama-wearers think Tesco is waging a class war.

One mother said: ‘This is just pathetic and shows how snobbish some people can be.
‘Do they have any idea how difficult it is to get three kids off to school when you are a single parent?

Goodness me, getting three kids off to school sounds really hard, it's probably terribly tiring too - so tiring that Mum has to go back to bed afterwards.

How is it that 'snobs' don't do this?

Let's put it into perspective - schools only have to be open for teaching for 190 days a year, not at weekends. Schools tend to open at the same time each day. It's a routine that should be relatively simple to master - especially for an adult.

Tesco employees who also happen to be parents can manage to get up, sort their kids out, and still be there to provide a service to these wannabe pyjama-wearers - and many Tesco staff will also be 'single parents'.

So taking a giant leap in logic, perhaps only a few, if any, of these pyjama-wearing 'single parents' go to work. Maybe they're just taking some time out, or maybe they are stay-at-home Mums who have never needed to go to earn - so have never had to plan ahead, never had to get themselves up, have breakfast, get dressed for work as well as get child or children dressed, breakfasted and ready for school and/or before taking them to the childminder early enough to be in work before the boss complains.

Maybe these ladies were part of the group we Rigbys breakfasted with a year or so ago - a whole tribe of them, wearing fluffy slippers, short nighties, embroidered pyjamas and so on.

There really is nothing wrong with wearing your nightwear when eating breakfast - at home. But there is something wrong when you can't be bothered to put on 'day' clothes before joining a number of complete strangers in a hotel dining room.

It looks as if our opinion is borne out by the comments on BBC's HYS.

There was a time when people made sure they were dressed according to the occasion - work clothes were for, err, work, casual clothes were for evenings and weekends, or whatever free-from-work time there was. Things slackened off, possibly at about the same time as tracksuits became 'fashionable' - but it's unlikely that those tracksuits were worn in bed as well as out of doors.

There was a time when people would make sure they got washed and dressed before they went further than either the back garden or the doorstep, and they also made sure that their nightclothes were worn only in bed - to make sure they weren't dirty, to make sure that there weren't 'outdoor things' in bedding.

It does seem incredible that 'these days' there are people who will happily get out of bed and mix with other people - strangers - in what are very public places without even making sure they are clean and tidy as well as properly covered up. Especially when every man is a potential rapist or child abuser.

To go food shopping without even bothering to wash the sleep from your eyes seems a little lackadaisical and is also probably unhealthy - but they don't seem to care.

A comment from an unnamed 'mother' :-

‘I can't see what is wrong with pulling a coat over your pyjamas to drop the kids off at school then stopping in the shop for a loaf of bread.

Sorry dear, I can, and so can people on Mumsnet .

On Facebook a group of, currently 10,640, people want to ban pyjamas from the streets of Liverpool.

The unnamed mother continues :-

‘I won't be bothering with Tesco anymore, I'm off to Aldi.’

And Aldi in Cardiff will welcome the great unwashed?

Let's wait and see, shall we.