CEX CESSION

I had five DVDs in my hand, four to sell one to buy and was standing at the Cex exchange counter behind a mother and daughter who were selling DVDs and games being checked by a young man.
It was hot, it’s always hot in Cex, loud music ditto. I felt sweat beading on my forehead.
‘This is taking forever,’ said the daughter turning to me raising her eyebrows. I smiled with a shrug resigned.
The young man started playing around with a woman who earlier I’d asked to serve me but she said, ‘no, he’s dealing with it.’ I thought she might have other things to do but I didn’t think twirling a Christmas decoration round her neck was one of them.
‘Fifty...cash,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ said the mother, ‘can I have a printout?’
‘Can I have one too?’ said the daughter.
While they read through the printouts he fiddled with notes and coins to fifty pounds. I got hotter, standing, waiting...
He looked at me then turned to a man was kneeling on the floor behind him flicking through the bottom shelf of discs in search of a title, said something to him I didn’t hear, then said to me, ‘we can’t buy anymore today.’
A momentary pause.
‘What?’ I said. ‘I’ve been stood here for fifteen minutes and now you tell me you can’t buy anymore today?’
‘There’s not enough staff and we’ve got to finish off,’ he said.
‘I understand that,’ I said, ‘but what really irritates me is that I’ve been standing here waiting, patiently mind you, while you’ve been messing around taking forever as if you've got all the time in the world when clearly you haven't...
‘Where’s the manager?’
‘They’re not here at the moment.’
‘Lucky for you,’ I said, ‘because if they had been here I’d have had a word and tell them about the appalling way you've treated a customer, that is me.’