This morning I had to go to Spar. If you know me, you will know that I HATE grocery shopping. But, you know, someone’s got to do it.

We needed a new iron and a few other things.

Anyway, got there and went upstairs. Chose the iron (bought two (don’t ask)) and paid for them upstairs. I went down to the supermarket area, got a trolley and proceeded to start dumping things in.

I got to the till, the checkout girl scanned everything and someone else packed it all for me. And… My card didn’t work. Actually, it wasn’t my card that didn’t work – it was their POS machine thingy. No network, apparently. She tried from three different machines and it didn’t work. They asked me to use the ATM outside to withdraw some cash and then come back to pay. There was a lady in the other queue who said she’d just been to that ATM and it didn’t work.

They then suggested that I go across the street to the bank and withdraw the money from the ATM over there.

I became a bit irate. You see, you’d think it was so simple to just ‘go across the street’ and get some cash. But it’s so much more complicated! I said to the checkout girl, ‘So I’ve spent one hour in this store, your POS machines aren’t working, so I have to leave all my things here, go across the street, withdraw the cash and then come back and pay?’ I was beginning to regret leaving the house. She replies, ‘I can’t let you take the shopping without paying.’ FFS – I never said I wanted 10,000 NGN worth of groceries for free! The lady behind me in the queue offered to lend me the cash. A great big thank you to her, if she ever reads this. But I couldn’t accept that (even though I’d have paid her back).

Anyway, so I had to just suck it up and go to GTB across the road. There are three ATMs outside the branch and NONE of them were dispensing cash. So off I went inside – to the second floor (no lift), stood in line and then managed to withdraw my money. Got back into the car. Had to go round again (irritating even though I wasn’t driving) and went back to Spar.

They wouldn’t let me in through the exit ((near the tills)I understand they have security policies and stuff in place, but I wasn’t about to rob the place, ffs), so I went in through the entrance and had to walk through the whole store again.

I realise this is hardly a big deal, and I feel ridiculous even writing about it. But I can’t understand how something like this can happen! How can none of the ATMs work? How can NONE of the POS thingies work? I wasted a good forty minutes in total. Forty minutes I could have spent at home. Alone. In peace.

I’m guessing that the whole problem was through GTB. Hopefully they’ve sorted themselves out by now.