Top Bombing

This is a quick story two tales in one. I am sharing this with you as it made me chuckle, I hope it has the same effect on you.

Last week we took a trip to Carefour on a mission of mercy for a friend of ours; it was a Stella Artois mission. Now whilst in Carefour we wandered into the electrical section and more specifically the TV section. My mother had been complaining about our TV not being big enough, or clear enough for her to see, and she also had problems with the sound. We thought that it was maybe time to invest in a bigger and better TV as mother spends a lot of the winter watching TV.

I think that it had already been decided that the new set had to be either a widescreen Plasma or LCD, size however had not really been considered, and price was going to be the decider. We looked at virtually every set on show and came across a 42” Plasma which was very keenly priced. Decision made and TV purchased, but they could not let us have one until Saturday but they would deliver. We could live with that as we did not think we would be able to get it into the car we had brought.

Saturday came and went and the TV was not delivered, the next day was New Years day so we had to wait until yesterday to contact them to find out what was going on and where our TV was. We rang them in the morning and they did not understand what we were talking about, so we rang our friend who teaches Spanish and asked for her assistance. Now anyone who has dealt with or tried to deal with Carefour, will be aware of their reputation and know how unhelpful they can be. I have to tell you the tales you hear are very true, having experienced this first hand. Carefour said that they knew nothing about the transaction but they would look into it and call us back. They did not call us, and as it was getting late we decided to go and collect the TV.

We set off and picked up our friend Mike to help us lift the set into the car, it seems as a girlie I cannot lift heavy things!! After much ado we managed to find a nice little man who was prepared to locate our set and asked us to come back in 10 mins and the set would be there. I had a little food shopping to do, and Mike had to replace some tools so we set off in different directions to do our shopping, whilst him indoors went off to get a trolley to put the TV in.

We all met back and sure enough the TV was there and had been loaded into a trolley ready for us to collect. Mike and I put our baskets into the other trolley along with a dozen cans of John Smiths bitter that him indoors insists threw themselves at the trolley as he walked past. The chaps headed off to the checkouts to pay for the shopping whilst I manoeuvred the trolley with the TV out of the shop at the other end. I met them at the checkout where Mike had packed his bag of tools and him indoors was packing his cans of John Smiths into bags. I was just packing my chicken into a carrier bag when there was this almighty explosion. The chicken had an instant flying lesson, narrowly missing the girl on the check out who was now under the checkout. My ears were ringing from the explosion, and my first thoughts were a terrorist attack. I felt something trickling down my face, and instantly thought I was bleeding. I looked back to Mike and then to him indoors, they were ashen, and the whole of Carefour in Murcia was silent and people stood with their mouths open, with a look of horror on their faces. Trust me there were some very frightened people and I was one of them, and I think underwear changes were required all round.

I looked back at the chaps again in the hope that they knew what had happened and realised the look of horror had turned into one of relief followed by hysterical laughter, and then the appearance of the store manager. You know it is a well known fact that in a terror situation some people react by laughing, although I am not sure why. However on this occasion it became apparent why they were laughing, and I then joined them followed by the checkout girl and then the store manager. Now just try and imagine this situation, there has been some sort of explosion in a very busy store and there are three Brits, the store manager and a checkout girl screaming with laughter, whilst the rest of the store looked on in horror and disbelief. Trouble was they could not see what we could.

When Mike put his bag of tools into the trolley it moved slightly and the bag of tools fell over and the hammer in the bag of tools hit one of the cans of John Smiths and the damned thing exploded, it ripped the can from end to end. It was by far the loudest explosion I have ever heard. We were all covered in beer in fact anyone in the vicinity was covered in beer. The crowd in the store were still standing open mouthed and all staring at us wondering what the hell was going on. The store manager having regained his composure leaned forward and said “Happy New Year”. Mike then lifted the mangled can of John Smiths to show the crowd in the store what had caused the explosion and shouted “Top Bombing”. That was it I was laughing hysterically again.

At least we got to see a widget!!