I complained to the supermarket tonight.

I was very angry, and very very unpleasant to the duty manager.

Darling Wifey had tried to buy petrol from one of their automatic pumps, and her credit card got jammed in the machine.

For half an hour the forecourt staff tried to tell her to contact the bank, because her card had been confiscated - but it was visibly jammed in the mechanism. (All the time, the clock was ticking and she was getting later and later for the children.) Eventually, a duty manager was called and he looked at the machine, turned to Darling Wifey, and had the crass stupidity to say,
“Well, it’s hardly our fault.”

So when I got back into town after a 13-hour day I confronted the aforementioned duty manager - a lad barely out of his teens and incapable of stringing together a coherent sentence. The poor little sod didn’t know which way to turn.

Anyway, Darling Wifey’s credit card will be returned to her at the soonest possible time: one of their security officers will be delivering it to her…

Little Nutter doesn’t like the car. The car is boring.

Occasionally we liven up the car by stopping for a Cardboard McBig, for which he will actually fasten his seatbelt. Then, when he has finished his Wood Pulp McNuggets, he unfastens the seatbelt and sits on the floor so he can pour his Glucose-Fructose-Sodium-Metabisulphate juice onto his seat and slurp it off at his leisure.

Once, we tried to put a stop to this entertainment. On that memorable occasion a fifty mile journey took three and a half hours.

Now, however, the Evil Daddy and his Darling Evil Queen Wifey have a Cunning Plan. We have bought an in-car portable DVD player with a built in screen.

Little Nutter loves his DVDs. He can watch them for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. (I’m being serious here: anyone reading this who has known a child with ASD will think I stopped typing ‘and hours‘ a little hastily…)

Our Cunning Plan is this: we are trying to convince Little Nutter that the in-car DVD system only works when his seatbelt is fastened. Darling Wifey sits in the front with the remote control, and Little Nutter squeals with delight whilst Bob The Builder saves the day from another near disaster.

When Little Nutter’s hand reaches for his seatbelt, she hits ‘pause.’ When he settles again, she hits ‘play.’ If the seatbelt is released, the power is cut.

It took Little Nutter five minutes to learn the rules.

As the work progresses on the rebuilding of my department, the stresses of Portakabin life are taking their toll. Every evening, as I leave my very own plastic shoebox and return to terra firma, I experience that strange sensation of land sickness that you get after a few days on a small boat.

Every evening, my ears throb after a day enduring the sound-box effect of the thin, plywood walls.

My eyes ache because of the cheap, inadequate lighting reflecting off the (unnecessarily shiny) cheap plastic flooring.

But all this is nothing compared with the burden of responsibility that I have been given today. I have to choose a colour scheme for my new department.

All five women in my department have their own opinion about what to do. I can?t even delegate without causing conflict. I need a professional arbitration service - and fast!

This morning we got the survey report on the house we are buying, and it is a scream.

The house is a 1930s building in a good part of town, and has been well maintained and is in good condition. However, it was also very tastelessly decorated in about 1975. The surveyor obviously couldn’t resist commenting.

In fact, the surveyor couldn’t resist filling his report with downright bitchy comments about wallpaper, carpets, fixtures & fittings and the style of the front door. His recommendations were for a roll of insulation for the roof void and extensive tasteful redecoration.

The problem is, now that all these comments are in his report and valuation, redecoration is a condition of the mortgage.

Our domestic appliances seem to have drawn up a “Sudden And Unexpected Death Rota.” This weekend, the microwave died.

(When it comes to nuking food, opinion is divided: some people think that micros are only for frozen ready meals and simple recipes for the culinarily challenged; the rest of us know how to operate a combination microwave-convection oven. Not that I believe everything should be nuked - there is, after all, a time for skewering dead animals on a spit and cooking them slowly whilst drinking Bordeaux’s finest. But on the other hand, being in a hurry is no excuse for eating mass-produced processed plastic packed pap.)

Combi ovens are complex beasts and require comprehensive instructions - but I wonder if these instructions are “dumbing down,” or if they are just displaying evidence that America’s “compensation culture” has established a beach-head somewhere on these shores? Here are some of the instructions:

Grills can become hot during operation. Do not touch them.

To open the door, pull the handle.

Since when has the purpose of instructions been to protect the stupid from themselves?

I spent eight years at university.

I have a senior management job in a good school.

I earn a good salary.

So why, when I am hungry at 10:45pm, is there only cold pasta, dry bread and the children’s breakfast cereal available for me to eat?

Coco-pops, anyone?