I went to "the corner shop" this morning. It was in semi-darkness. A noisy generator was running outside. "They switched us off," said the shopkeeper. "Just like that, they switched us off!" I put some things in a basket and brought them to the till. The power came back on again. "Aaaah!" said the people in the shop. "Turn off the generator!" someone ordered. The generator powered down. "They were fixing that power cable," said the shopkeeper, pointing to the street. "It was dangling for months." They rang up my purchase. The power went down -- again. "Put this ice-cream back in the freezer," the shopkeeper said to an assistant. This was not a good sign. Someone ran to power up the generator again. The shopkeeper said, "We're waiting for the system to boot up again. Hopefully your purchase wasn't erased." It was. After an inordinately long boot-up, the assistant took over, beginning at the beginning again. Now the bar-code scanner was dead. "I must fetch the ice-cream," she said, and vanished, Then the card machine wouldn't work. OBSERVATION: It all came together in the end. As seems to be customary by now, we all greeted each other with patient smiles, and I was on my way.
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