Every Little Helps!

Hi everyone!

I've been having an issue with my mobile phone lately. My son who is a technophile, told me it was something to do with an upgrade that damaged the battery.

I asked Google (as you do) and found out that I had to take my phone to a phone shop in town, and they would send it off for a free battery replacement.

To cut a long story short.....

Having tried once to sort my phone out - and failed - I was determined to do the deed today. I called the shop really early, found out that they had a spare phone I could borrow whilst mine was being repaired and made an appointment for 30 minutes later.

Now, I don't know about you, but I begrudge paying for parking in the town centre. Time was you could park free on streets that were close. There's no chance now - it's all parking meters. I was in a hurry, remembering what a hassle it was to park the first time I tried to get the phone repaired. I decided I would park in Tesco's. It 2 hours free parking if you buy something in store. A nice bottle of red wine, I thought.

I arrived breathless at the phone shop after almost running all the way from Tesco's. My phone suddenly drained power in front of Amy, the person serving me, so she could immediately see the problem.

She spent the next hour trying to transfer my data to a loan phone, whilst simultaneously charging both handsets.

A parking fine?

I read a story on Facebook earlier this morning about someone getting a parking ticket in Tesco's. I twitched with anxiety while Amy finished sorting out the phones. Then I rushed back for my wine and to secure a car park pass before the time ran out.

I wandered round the store, looked at the wine shelves and ended up with cholesterol-lowering spread, some carrots and a box of brown sugar lumps, but sadly, no wine.

Token!

Then I remembered - I can get a token at the checkout for Banwell Bowling Club's project to help members handle the internet and bowling club app. So, I queued patiently at a till to get my token (and my car park pass). Last time I did this, I was given a token, and was unable to make my mind up which of the 3 boxes to put it in. Admittedly, it was a fair few years ago, as I don't generally shop at Tesco's.

This time, instead of handing me a token, the person on the checkout pointed to a small dish full of tokens. An idea occurred to me; "Can I take 2?" I asked. "Of course" she replied. "People tend to ignore them these days".

So, I took 2 and put them into the box labelled Banwell Bowling Club, which was near the exit. There were quite a few in there already, and certainly as many as in the other 2 boxes. As I turned round to leave, there was a man behind me with a token in his hand.

"Oooh, can you put your token in the Banwell box to help our members?" I asked, batting my eyelashes to persuade him. " Sure" he said, reading the information on the box. He dropped his token in...... followed by a handful more. It turns out that the self-checkout has a big bowl of tokens, and you can just help yourself!

So next time I need to park, I will get that nice bottle of red wine, go to the self-checkout, pick up a large handful of tokens and put them in the Banwell box!

If we all do the same until the end of January, Banwell Bowling Club may well win the top prize - every little helps!

By the way, the parking pass worked.

Yay!