Ok, I'll put my cards on the table - I hate spending money, therefore I hate shopping (unless it's for electrical gadgets) and the whole experience is one I just want to get over as quickly as humanly possible.

In the weekly grocery shop - second only to clothes shopping in my list of least favourite shopping ventures, I have been through the anguish and boredom of collecting the goods, mentally totting up the increasing amount to then have to pay for it all at the end.  Having served my time as a shop assistant in my formative years, I try to be as civil and ameanable as I can be whilst at the checkout.

Take it as read that the "picking the right queue" procedure has been gone through.  There are very few cashiers who get it just right - I either have the cashier who feels the need to probe me in minute detail about my plans for the rest of my waking life and comments on every purchase in my trolley, or I get a surly youth who barely manages to grunt out the "do you want any help with your packing?"  phrase (a phrase which I have been asked whilst having the grand total of 3 items on the conveyer belt - I think I can manage thanks).

So the bags are packed and it's time for the reward card and visa card to be handed over.  Now, I like the idea of chip and pin - as long as the banks can avoid skimming frauds taking place as in the ATMs.  One reason I like them is that I no longer have cashiers making witty comments about the size of my handwriting (which, I must admit is quite small).  The signatures were either checked by Gestapo style cashiers, examining every loop, ascender and descender in minute detail, or more often, not even looked at - my parents managed to get their joint credit cards swapped over and it was 2 weeks before a cashier noticed that my dad's scrawl looked nothing like the neatly formed letters of my mother.

But...

1.  ASDA now make you put in the card yourself, put in the number and remove the card.  The other day when I popped in, the cashier didn't actually say a single word to me.  Almost as galling as the time I was shopping and the cashier was yakking away to her friend, ignoring me, then asked if I was the 'secret shopper' - quite confused, I shook my head, so she carried on chatting away about her recent accomplishments in her love life (on refelection that was quite revealing actually).

2. Why do they ask me to put in my PIN number?  What they're asking me is to put in my Personal Idenification Number number.

But my major annoyance is:

3. I'll stand poised over the chip and pin machine, ready to enter my number (I've only got 2 cards so don't have to worry about having a Rainman style memory) and the screen says 'Please Wait'.  Then the cashier says can you enter your PIN number just before the screen changes to say 'type in PIN and press enter'.  I don't know why, but I just feel like I'm being made out to be a techno-incompetent by that cashier - does it change on their side first to give them the upper hand?  Perhaps I do prefer the mute ASDA approach afterall.

Right, I'll get off the couch now, brush off my muddy footprints and go back into life feeling cleansed.  Thankyou.