Phone rings” hello im from (some company selling printer stuff) can I give you a quote for your toner” “ok (I tell her all the details) “right well replacement toners for that are £90 but we can sell them to you for £70” “the whole printer cost £50” “right, well what do you pay at the moment?” “£20 from the printer store round the corner” “£20 well that that has got to be remanufactured” “yes it is” “well ours are double capacity” “right so your saying one £70 toner does 2000 pages and 1 £20 toner does 1000 pages. So buying 3 £20 toners I could do 1000 more pages and have a tenner change” “well the print qualities brilliant” “I don’t really care, I hate to say it comes down to money, but what your proposing is silly” “silly!!!?” “yeah masses more money for less pages” “ok well if you buy a years worth ill do the cartages for £45 plus vat and throw in a welcome gift, and also take used cartages away” “that’s still more” “no its not” “look one of your toners for £45 witch you have magically slashed the price to half of the original £90 still costs more than 2 toners from the shop round the corner.” “but but but ours is a better deal” “no its not” “so can I sign you up” “No you cannot” “but but but please” “no bye bye” “but….” I hang up

Bloke walks in, soaking wet, hands filthy, glasses bent and smashed up held together with bits of tape and plasters. He talks very slowly and very quietly. Almost immediately I notice his glasses don’t have lenses in.

“hello” “hi I can see you are missing your lenses from your glasses” “yes I have lost them” (my brain is screaming “why the hell are you wearing them” then but I hold back) “oh dear” I say kinda sympathetically and there’s a long pause with him just looking at me. “What do I do?” “Well do you still have the lenses?” “One I lost a few years ago” “ohh right?!” “and this one dropped out this weekend near a bonfire” (this whole sentence took him about 40 seconds to say) “right so you need some new glasses then” “yes these glasses don’t work very well without the lenses in, it’s a bit of in inconvenience” “I can imagine” (why the fuck are you wearing them) “do you have a prescription” “yes here” “I can seem to find you on the records, how long ago was it?” “7 or 8 years” “could it have been over 10? Records get destroyed over 10 years” “maybe” “well in any case we need to do an eye test if it has been that long” “why?” “Because your prescription need to be in date to be made up” “ohh I don’t know my rights, can you tell me?” “Well we need an up to date prescription to make up some glasses” “lenses!” (There’s no fucking way frame he is wearing is reusable) “so would you like to book in” “cant you just copy these” “copy the lenses?” “yeah?!” “but you have lost them, there is nothing for me to copy” “ohh” “so do you want to book in for an eye test or try and see if someware else can see you sooner” he sits there comatose for a full minuet, then adjust the glasses with no lenses in and I can see that they are physically hurting him to ware and they are buckled and digging into his face. “What should I do?” “Book in, or try someware else” another 3 mins of him sitting there silent. “I just thought you could copy them” “as I said there’s nothing to copy” “ohh?” and he gets up saying he’ll find out his rights and leaves.

Phone rings nasal sounding chavy woman “do you do the thing for the taxi’s?” “you’re threw to the opticians” “yeah I know, do you do that thing for the taxi’s?” “what thing?” “you know!” “im sorry I don’t” “you know, the new thing…. The test” “what an eye test?” “NO! begins with is S (she may have said F)” “do you have any paper work?” “NO! (shes getting really annoyed now) YOU DON’T HAVE PAPER WORK, IT’S THE S TEST TAXI DRIVERS HAVE” “well normally any occupations test have a form telling us what’s required and we fill in” “THERE IS NO FORM” “ok well how do you reports the results” “I TAKE THE RESULTS BACK DUH! ARE YOU TELLING ME YOU HAVE HAD NO TAXI PEOPLE THEER EVER!” I have had taxi people, but they had forms out lineing what they needed to be tested for” (shes almost shouting now) “I TOLD YOU THERE’S NO FORM, IF YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT THIS TEST IS ITS BEGINES WITH AN S/F” “I really don’t know what you want” “OHH WELL START TELLING ME ALL THE TEST THAT START WITH A S/F” “I can book you in for a full eyetest, but without knowing if you need anything specialist done it could waste your time” “ARE YOU SEROSLY TELLING ME YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT” “no im afraid I don’t, if you can find out what test it is ill be happy to book you in” “IT’S THE TEST FOR THE TAXI DUH! I KEEP TELLING YOU” “…” “CAN I COME DOWN NOW AND HAVE IT DONE” “I still don’t know what you need, and also we have finished testing today, I can book you in tomorrow for an eye test” “THE TAXI F TEST!!!!! OHHHH FORGET IT” (SLAMS DOWN THE PHONE)

I walk into the newsagent to pick up the milk and paper, the place is packed. Yep there are 4 customers including me. The shops that frigging small. Standing there waiting to be served, I can suddenly smell really strong alcohol. Look around checking I haven’t some how managed to knock something off a shelf. Then I notice it. It’s the low life skunger in front of me in the queue. He was physically unable to wait 30 seconds until he had payed and left the shop, he’d ripped of the lid and started on a can of super strength cider and was chugging it down. Suppose at least he was paying for it.