Chips, Pins and Idiots

I still can't believe I did this.
At the supermarket today I had to use 'chip and pin' for the first time. As all the experts recommend, I picked up the card reader and turned it towards my body to avoid being overlooked. But then, as I input the numbers I heard myself speaking them aloud. The boy at the checkout was looking at me open-mouthed although, to be fair, staring open-mouthed is that boy's default expression. Fortunately, in the circumstances, I had carefully enunciated one of my internet log-ins so I had to start again, this time with my mouth clenched tightly shut.
There are two explanations for this idiotic behaviour. Firstly, it may have been a way of jogging my memory. Secondly, if you live alone you tend to talk to yourself. Or, not so much talk to yourself in a deranged kind of way but occasionally speak your thoughts aloud.
Still, it wasn't quite as embarrassing as the time I inadvertently took someone else's trolley to the checkout and only realised my mistake when I found myself unloading a bumper pack of economy sanitary towels.

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Essex man on 'Wife Swap' last night:
"I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. But when it comes to appearances I think you should."
A long-lost relative of George W. Bush?

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CAPTION COMPETITION

The winning entry was: "Hey, Condee's got a beaver like that!"

A book token is on its way to Mr Bernard Manning.