As Shelby walked through the entrance to Fresh Foods supermarket, her eyes were drawn to the member of staff at checkout number nine. She could feel her heart skip a beat as she saw HIM, he was gorgeous, blond wavy hair, muscular build, she didn’t know the colour of his eyes yet, but she was sure they would be a perfect cornflower blue. 

 “Right, time to shop,” she thought, “Time to buy some sirloin steak, posh wine and a luxury pudding, so that I can impress the man on checkout number nine with my sophisticated taste.” Shelby walked around the supermarket picking up her shopping and then made her way to checkout number nine.

 There was a queue for this till and she noted that it was mainly women lined up behind each other, so Shelby patiently joined the end of this queue – but the wait was worth it!

 He started scanning her shopping, handling the steak as he did so, Shelby wished she was that steak. “I’m cooking that tonight,” she informed HIM, “I hope I don’t make a mis-steak!” Shelby laughed nervously at her own humour, but he just gave her a weird look and carried on scanning. She suddenly noticed his name badge, why hadn’t she ever noticed it before?

 Shelby tried to read the name without it seeming too obvious. “Jason? No, it says Jaxon.” “That’s an unusual name,” she commented to HIM, he looked down at his name badge and shrugged, “I suppose so, I’ve never really thought about it.” She would have liked to have exchanged views on the meaning of his name, where it had originated and its deep meaning, but Jaxon didn’t seem interested in doing this and the queue of women behind her looked like they were about to lynch her, obviously her allotted time was up.

 “That’ll be £22.50,” Jaxon said and Shelby felt a little faint, “That’s a lot of money to try and impress somebody,” she thought and wondered if her limited cooking skills would do justice to the £7 piece of meat she had just bought. “Well, at least I’ll do the wine justice,” she thought, “As it is a lovely Shiraz.”

 On her way home, Shelby popped into the local store to pick up some essentials. The store had been owned by the same family for years with Mary and Paul Crump, who ran the shop together with their son, Tommy.

 She walked round the store picking up some potatoes, carrots, cabbage, breakfast cereal, milk and her normal dinnertime choice, a meal for one and headed for the only checkout in the store.

 “Hi Tommy, how are you today?” she enquired, “How’s business?” Tommy looked up and smiled, “Hello Shelby, yeah, it’s all good here at Crump Towers,” he replied. This was the answer that Tommy gave every time and it made Shelby laugh every time. “That’s good then, any plans for the weekend?” she asked him, “No, not for me, a quiet weekend in with the parents, that’s all I’ve got to look forward to,” he replied.  “Yeah, I’m much the same, I’ll be found sat in front of the TV watching typical Saturday night television, well, have a good one, bye,” said Shelby.  “Goodbye Shelby, see you soon.”

 The sirloin steak wasn’t the best dinner she had ever cooked, but the wine tasted lovely and as she settled down on the sofa to watch the TV and drank a couple of glasses of wine, she slid into a sleep where she dreamt that she was in Fresh Foods supermarket, she was running to the wine section, filling up her trolley, running to the meat section and filling up with all sorts of different meats and then making a mad dash to the checkout, only to find Dale Winton sat there saying, “The next time you’re at the checkout and you hear the beep, think of the fun you could be having on Supermarket Sweep!” and as she looked down she discovered she was naked! Shelby woke up in a cold sweat, looked down, saw she was fully clothed, heaved a sigh of relief and then went to bed.

 A few days later Shelby was back at Fresh Foods supermarket, makeup freshly applied, smart but casually sexy dress and, of course, high heels. She glanced at her reflection in the store’s windows on the way in and was pretty pleased with what she saw.  After a peruse around the aisles, she decided on salmon this time, a white wine and cheese and biscuits for afters, she made her way to HIS checkout.

 Amongst the women in the queue that checkout number nine inevitably attracted, there was one hopeful male, Shelby hoped that he was in the wrong queue, that just wouldn’t be fair!

 It seemed like forever until Shelby was at the front of the queue, having noted that Mr. Hopeful, the male in the queue, had left the supermarket pretty quickly and she was unpacking her basket for HIM to scan. “So, we meet again Jaxon,” Shelby said, “This time I’m cooking salmon,” and she winked at him, in what she hoped was a seductive, suggestive way. Jaxon looked at her and asked, “Is there something wrong with your eye? I know that older ladies can get cataracts.”

 Shelby didn’t know what to get offended at first, the fact that he had called her an ‘older lady,’ or the fact that he mistook her sexy wink as an eye disease? She paid for her shopping, not even checking the price, that’s how mad she was and marched out of the store.

 Once in her car, Shelby looked in the rear view mirror at herself and said aloud, “Well, that certainly told me, I suppose I am a bit older than him, but there was no need for that.”

On her way home, Shelby stopped off at the local store to pick up some groceries and once her basket was full, she made her way to the checkout. Tommy was there, as usual, with his cheery smile, “Hey Shelby, wow, you look fabulous,” he told her, followed by, “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to be…” “No, don’t apologise,” Shelby cut in, “Thank you, it’s just what I needed right now.”

 “Well, anything to cheer you up,” said Tommy. Shelby took stock for a moment, Tommy was in front of her, she’d never noticed how nice looking he was, she recalled how he always had time to speak with her, how he would tell her a joke and make her laugh and she heard herself saying, “Hey, if you’re not busy tonight, would you like to come over for dinner?”  “That would be great, I would love to, do you want me to bring something over?” asked Tommy, “No, that’s fine,” said Shelby, “I’ve got some salmon in my car.”

 “You know we really should get rid of Jaxon, he’s not very good at his job at all,” said Natasha,  Fresh Foods’ Assistant Manager, “You must be joking,” replied Mark, the Manager, “He may not be very quick on the till, but just look at the queue, he attracts the customers better than any “Buy one, get one free,” offer that we can do,” and Natasha certainly had to agree with that!