The Club Card an anecdote by Aileen Cleave

 The Club Card

The broadleaf  trees I love so much are stark and bare, their naked branches reaching upwards to a grey sky, the air is  chilly and the atmosphere over all would be decidedly bleak but for the warmth of the Christmas lights,  the excitement and anticipation of the crowds filling the shops, and the unmistakable and distinct character of the welcoming British pub.

However, a visit to the supermarket is unavoidable, we must make our contribution to the festivities. What seems like many years ago when we resided here in good old Blighty, we had a Club Card, a Tesco Club Card, I remember it well.  It didn’t seem to be an enormous advantage back then, but a quick journey through the crowded aisles of this local branch, reveals a totally different story now. Just on wine alone, already an exorbitant price to our Spanish eyes, the difference is huge.  My husband is on a mission.  We need to find and reinstate our Club Card.  I look at him as though he were mad, the store is heaving, the air is electric with suppressed panic at  possibly forgetting some essential ingredient for the big day, imagine Mercadona before a Red Day, then treble it , and this sadly deluded man wants to commandeer a Santa’s little helper to delve into the years’ old mystery of the lost Club Card.  My heart sank; I knew he wouldn’t be deterred, so I look around for the kindest, oldest looking attendant, one who wouldn’t  display fraught impatience at two septuagenarians requesting his help.  I was rewarded with Max.  Max, who looked to me as though he should have been warming his slippers by the fire, couldn’t have been more helpful.  

With great deliberation as though explaining to two five year olds, he took my iPhone, accessed the appropriate site and bade me  enter my email address.  Ahh!  Herein lies the first difficulty.  When I first showed my loyalty to Tesco some six or seven years ago, I had a different email address, one which was subsequently hacked, and here we enter into the vexatious world of forgotten passwords.

Max is so fervently helpful I haven’t the heart to tell him I’ve been through this whole process before.  All this time our shopping is sitting on the self service counter, the display prompting us to show our missing card.  Max, who tells us he has worked for Tesco for 27 years and is obviously a company man, is now accessing the Help Line number for me, determined to recruit another loyal customer.  My husband suddenly remembers he has a photograph of our daughter’s card on his phone.  He shows it to Max, Max asks if it’s genuine, my husband nods reassuringly, then Max goes in for the kill.  “And you are this person?” he asks.  My husband cannot lie.  He admits it is our daughters.  

By now even my husband’s determination is faltering under Max’s careful and slow, very slow, rebuttals of what we can and cannot do.   We thank Max effusively and pay  the undiscounted bill with our debit card.   Seemingly very reluctant to leave us, Max then explained  that had we simply produced the photo without involving a member of staff, especially him who was apparently very  high up in security, the discount would have been awarded.    We gritted out teeth, smiled and wished Max a very merry  Christmas.