Note to self, following yesterday's death-by-irritation saga:
Next time I want to buy a printer cartridge I will:
1. Take my phone with me, to explain why a half-hour errand is taking two and a half.
2. Not, in fact, leave my phone at work the previous night, necessitating a special visit there today when I wasn't expecting to go in at all.
3. Not get seduced by shelf after shelf of sexy, shiny computer kit at PC World, so that the ink cartridge becomes, by the time I reach the check-out, £100.45-worth of stuff.
4. Take some loose change, so that I am not stuffed sideways for paying when the check-out assistant refuses to accept a cheque because my guarantee card has a £100 limit. She did agree to accept a £100 cheque if I had the 45 pence in cash, but that was no bloody help as my pockets were empty. The chap behind me in the queue offered the 45p but I wouldn't accept it, because why should he have to pay for their inflexibility?
5. Not feel quite so smug about walking out of the store leaving all the stuff I was going to buy on the check-out counter, telling them that I'd take my business elsewhere. Sure, I'd do it again under similar circumstances, but smugness is not good.
6. Pay very large cheque from current client into bank account as soon as I get it, so it clears quickly and I can pay for computer supplies by Visa, instead of having to use a cheque because I need the time it'll take to work through the system for my money to clear into my account.
7. Having failed in visit to PC World, I will not trail around numerous half-forgotten computer supply stores, all with inconvenient parking (or none at all) in traffic jam-dominated roads, in case they are a) still in business and b) stockists of HP C6578 ink cartridges – because they aren't. Ever.
8. Follow my first instinct, which is to go to the poky little computer shop a few minutes away in the nearest town centre where I used to get cartridges for the old printer, but which I haven't been to since they moved into new, slightly less poky, premises. Of course, they had exactly what I wanted at a good price…