System's down mate!

Not that you'll remember but I posted a while back about a shopping trip to the local Co-op to buy a loaf of bread when they had a power cut to the till.  They had bread, I had money, we both knew the price but they apparently didn't have enough electricity in the right place to actually sell me anything.

Well...same happened at my local post office recently.  To be fair I have 2 local post offices.  The nearer one is a bit useless and they don't seem to know how to do anything very post-officey.  The slightly further away one is really good and they know what they're doing.  They might have had the gumption to improvise and to have avoided what I'm about to relate...

But...on this occasion I went to the nearest post office.  There was a hand-written sign on the counter window saying 'system down'.  There was a man fiddling with a magazine at the counter (might have been the Puzzler or something similar).  I approached and he pointed at the sign and shouted 'system's down'!  I explained that I just wanted some second class large letter stamps and he said 'sorry mate, the system's down'.  So it seemed the system was, er, down.  I suggested that maybe he could sell me some stamps anyway.  I knew he had stamps and I assured him I had money and I said he surely must have something that told him how much stamps were.  Absolutely no bloody use at all.  There was no way apparently that he could take some stamps out of the book he had in front of him and take my money and give me the stamps I wanted given the fact that the 'system' was 'down'!  He said I could buy some ordinary stamps from the other counter (the grocery counter) where apparently the system was less down or it's down or upness was less crucial to the process of selling me stamps.  But of course they only had small letter stamps not big letter stamps.  Perhaps 'the system' isn't interested in the tiny but only the slightly bigger.

So...now you know.  If the system is down you can still buy stamps.  But only small ones.  From the non post-office counter in the psot office. 

If we ever have a prolonged power cut or system downage we'll all starve and everything will stop.  The shop can be full of whatever it is you want.  You may have money and you may be able to add up or just know what items cost.  But they won't be able to sell you anything because the electricity is off somewhere or the system.  Is. Down!