I earned £20 for this
Dear Sir/Madam

First, let me say that I love your shop. Great food, great brand, great quality.

But – my God – the stores are like animated cemeteries. I’ve never seen so many old people in one place, except perhaps in a care home. I step in from the street and immediately my heartbeat decreases as I meet a slow-moving wall of blue-rinse, walking aids and pastels. Honestly, I almost lapsed into a narcoleptic state the other day as I tried to cut past an old dear who seemed to be using continental drift as a means of locomotion rather than the escalator.

You’ve got to respect them, of course. They must be your core customers. But it’s beyond frustrating for anyone below the age of seventy. I swear I saw one old dear with a ration book walking around. She must have got lost in knitwear in 1951 and was still trying to find her way out of the shop. Another was perched at the top of the escalator quite mesmerised by this wonder of the twentieth century as scores of people backed up behind her.

I can’t live without your pecan yum-yums or cinnamon swirls, so I come into the store regularly. But I risk lapsing into a coma every time I do. There’s no getting round them. I feel like James Bond trying to overtake an ice-cream van on a Swiss mountain pass as I attempt to get out of the doors before my purchases fossilise or evolve into something else entirely.

So I have come up with a few suggestions to make life easier for everyone. If you could implement a few of these, I’m sure that you’d sell more stuff.

1) A fast lane for people who still have all their mental and physical faculties. This would allow your more mobile customers to get in and out of the shop without getting stuck behind an old gent who thinks he’s still on the Somme.
2) A recovery room for oldsters who can’t remember who they are or why they left home that day. They can get a nice cup of tea here and call a relative to find out what year it is etc.
3) Instructions for escalators, informing users that they must continue walking when they reach the beginning or end of the moving metal steps. Stopping will cause others to stumble, fall or become homicidal with rage.
4) Chat lay-bys where groups of gimmers can leave the main walkways to engage in hour-long conversations with friends on how tall little Johnny has become or how Edna’s womb has gone septic etc.
5) Specially-trained staff to take people away from the checkouts and explain that the reindeer cardigan was available only during Christmas 1973 and that the one chance to get it now is on Ebay (or in heaven, which will be reached sooner than a grasp of the internet).
6) Emergency adrenaline shots (break glass for access) to use on people like me whose metabolism has slowed to hibernative rates as I totter in suspended animation behind a woman who has been in the shop so long that her basket contains a Charles & Diana commemorative box of shortbread.

I offer these suggestions as a fan of the store and I hope that you can introduce some of them. If not, some gift vouchers will have to suffice.
(Fothermucker, Tue 24 May 2011, 16:03, 12 replies)

Where are you talking about?
To be fair, it could be just about any high street shop. How people get anything done of an afternoon when they plod along at such a glacial pace I have no idea.
( AWPS, Tue 24 May 2011, 16:40, closed)

I liked...
..."seemed to be using continental drift as a means of locomotion rather than the escalator".
(SonoraAeroClub "OH SWEET HELEN OF BALLS!", Tue 24 May 2011, 16:45, closed)

I also liked this bit very much
:D
( camp freddy well, would you look at that!, Wed 25 May 2011, 8:39, closed)

clicked!
I have emailed this to my local Asda!
I await the vouchers.
(Unstable-Dan looks like that bloke out of Scream, Tue 24 May 2011, 16:51, closed)

I'm assuming
M&S.
Excellently written.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Tue 24 May 2011, 17:09, closed)

Very good,
and lots of giggles! Click
( Blind Meach Cautiously optimistic, Tue 24 May 2011, 17:21, closed)

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH
I LOLed several times. Beautifully written and very funny.

A+++++ Would Read Again
( Michael Ellis contributes nothing, Tue 24 May 2011, 19:00, closed)

M&S?
I'm an old fuddy duddy (at 23) who loves to peruse items there. Had to help a wee wobbly woman up the escalator a few weeks back.
( vix0r was not Matthew on, Tue 24 May 2011, 20:29, closed)

I concur
Every time I go in there I just want to yell at them:

"You Sir! yes you! You stormed ashore on Sword Beach, disembowelled 17 Germans with your teeth and now you wear beige? You Madam! You deciphered U Boat traffic, had a threesome with Ike and Kay Summersby, and you can't even remember if your grandson likes toffee? Trust me, he'd much prefer those Tijuana Bibles you keep in the attic. Everyone! Regret something you did, not something you didn't!"
(all my scars face forward possesses 2.5% of a hyperalloy combat chassis, Tue 24 May 2011, 21:12, closed)

this
is pure class
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Tue 24 May 2011, 21:29, closed)

last year
i was working as an emergency doc in a small district general hospital in the south east. once a week on a thursday for 4 weeks on the trot i had to deal with a 'nan down' (4 different nans). they had all collapsed in m and s. i have no idea why. they were all fine. as quickly as the phenomena started it stopped again. i was considering asking m and s for some form of payment
( bertisfantastic bert is a sleepy bear, Tue 24 May 2011, 22:18, closed)

I nearly read that as "...I [sic] was considering asking for S&M as some form of payment."

(SonoraAeroClub "OH SWEET HELEN OF BALLS!", Wed 25 May 2011, 0:04, closed)