Published at 06:12, Friday, 26 February 2010

HAVE you ever wondered what we used to do before we had bank cards?

I was in Tesco in Hexham on Friday, making the series of extravagant purchases Mrs Hextol deems necessary to keep body and soul together for another week, and sank into a reverie about the days when the weekly shop came to a fiver, rather than a sum almost as much as it cost my sister to buy her first house.

We went and had a coffee to recover from the shock, and then went home.

The next day, we were in Matalan at Kingston Park, where Mrs Hextol loaded the trolley with what appeared to me to be an entire new wardrobe of casual attire.

She said: “You’re bursting out of all your clothes, so you’re having some new ones.”

I have to say that she did have a point; when I selected my usual sized trousers, and retired to the changing room to admire myself in the mirror, I hit something of a problem

No matter how much I breathed in, and stood on my tip toes, there were still several inches of hairy belly fully exposed between the two halves of the waistband.

I was eventually able to cinch them together with my belt, and tip-toed out of the cubicle to show Mrs Hextol the snug fitting strides.

She was horrified, and snorted: “You can’t wear those! You’re showing all your credentials!”

I was ushered back into the cubicle with a more commodious pair, to which Mrs Hextol added assorted shirts and jumpers, and trundled off to the till.

That’s when I began rifling through my wallet, and got that sinking feeling that comes with the fact you can’t find your bank card.

As murmurs of discontent rose from the laden shoppers behind me, I had to turn the entire wallet out in pursuit of the missing plastic.

I found all manner of store cards and credit cards which had either expired or I did not know the pin numbers for; I found a lock of Mrs Hextol’s hair from 1967; I found receipts for purchases made several Christmases ago; I found business cards from people I had no recollection of ever meeting; but of the bank card, there was no sign.

So I raked through coat and trouser pockets, finding fluff-coated cough drops and an aeroplane boarding pass from 2006 – but still no bank card.

Wildly, I looked around for Mrs Hextol, in order to use her card from the joint account, but she had already left the building.

I finally located the emergency card for Mrs Hextol’s personal account, and paid with that, expecting claps of thunder and bolts of lightning from outside the store.

The relief of the till girl was palpable, and the two burly security men hovering close by seemed very disappointed at being denied the pleasure of escorting me from the premises.

“Where have you been – forgotten your pin number again?” Mrs Hextol asked peevishly when I finally emerged, and she rolled her eyes expressively when I explained.

With a sigh, she pointed out that I was wearing a different coat to the one I had been sporting the previous day, and opined the card was probably in the pocket of that garment.

I pointed out there was still the problem of filling the car with diesel, so she proffered her card from the joint account with which to pay.

I filled up, but then noticed there was an inordinately long queue at the check-out.

As the toll approached, I discovered the chip and pin device was out of action, and the old-style card swipe procedure was being employed.

I have never been much of a forger, and was about to drop miserably out of the queue I had spent 20 minutes standing in when I suddenly remembered I had just enough cash in my pocket to pay the old fashioned way.

The relief was palpable, and as soon as we got home, I reached confidently into the pockets of my other jacket – and the card wasn’t there either.

I recalled taking the dogs and grandson for a particularly muddy walk wearing that coat, conducted a finger-tip search of the glaur to no avail, and was about to call the bank to cancel the card when I had a brainwave.

I rang Tesco, and they confirmed I had left the blessed thing in the chip and pin machine!

Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk