"Tell her you're a feminist"

On the way back from the dump this morning where we deposited my old printer and shredder (q.v.) we pop into the supermarket for odds and ends. The store is almost deserted.

Finishing up, we approach the one open checkout, occupied by a young woman waiting resignedly for custom. I judge her as intelligent, serious and woke.

Supermarkets are designed to be soporific. I begin unloading the trolley while the checkout girl waits and Clare adopts that spaced-out mode to which she is uniquely susceptible under the supermarket's hypnotic lighting and ambient white noise.

"Clare, if you could grab the bag she'd be able to start."

Clare starts, wakes, fishes the shopping bag out of the trolley and walks around to the front of the checkout. The girl appears to be adjusting something in her cash register. I continue unloading.

I complete my task and push the empty trolley round to the front. The girl looks up and finally begins to transfer items through - and I've been judged.

She heard me apparently ordering Clare around and by implication ordering her to start work. She's concluded that I'm a classic old, male-chauvinist pig. She thoroughly disapproves of me and is having none of it.

Paying, I play my part in the script: 'Car parking, no cashback, take your card'. We both adopt an utterly businesslike demeanour. Except she looks at me like I'm a dead fish.

I say to Clare, "Tell her you're a feminist."

Except that I don't. That might be construed as self-defeating.