I truly despair

Confession time: I do occasionally shop in Lidl. I think it's great for food, for our guinea pigs that is. On top of that, I can also find the occasional treat (suitable for human consumption) there like German rye bread (yummy) or feta-stuffed peppers (very yummy). There you go I said it. However I try to bring a Waitrose bag from home and put my Lidl shopping in there. Don't laugh, I'm sure you all do the same.

Anyway I paid a visit to my local Lidl last night. As I was leaving the store, I could see a group (?) of four teenagers (??), two boys and two girls, looking at me. I used all these question marks because a) probably the word 'gang' would be more suitable than 'group', and b) some of the members of this 'grang' were not old enough to be teenagers. Anyway I could see the girls - both of them sporting the infamous 'Croydon facelift' hairstyle - prod one of the boys. Seconds later, as said boy took a few steps to approach me, I quickly reached for the contents of my Waitrose bag and picked the newly-purchased cucumber as my potential self-defense weapon of choice.

Just before I had to extract my lethal weapon (it's the cucumber, no sniggering at the back) and bash this 'babychav' over his head, he asked me the following question 'Excuse me mate, if we give you the money, would you buy us a bottle of vodka?'. I don't know what shocked me most. Was it the cheeky request? Or was it the fact that he called me 'mate'? Before I digress on this, let me tell you that, if he had asked me if the two of us could possibly engage in some sort of sexual intercourse in the nearby public toilets, I would have been slightly less shocked. Hence my reply was a loud and resounding 'Nooooo!!!' - my face probably couldn't show all my contempt but there you go, I know I'm not perfect.

Anyway I truly dispair when a 'grang' of four adolescents can't find a better way to spend their evening than downing a bottle of cheap vodka. There is a reason why it is unlawful to sell alcohol to minors and I can definitely see why. Do we want to see adolescents roam free whilst pissed out of their heads?? They already do that,all over the country, I hear you say, but I don't want to be 'accessory' to that, thank you very much! Secondly, why are you calling me 'mate'? I have never met you before and I am much older than you, in fact I'm probably older than your own dad as well. Which makes me wonder what sort of dad he is, if you're resorting to ask total strangers to buy vodka for you. You know what? It's ok, you can call me 'mate' - rather that than 'dad'.