The young girl on the service desk at Coles Supermarket greeted me with a smile.

“Good morning Madam, can I help you?”

“Well, for starters, don’t call me Madam.  It makes me feel like I should be taking my shopping home to the brothel.  My name’s Lucy.”

“Sorry, Lucy.  I’m Helga, now, what can I do for you?”

I hauled out a plastic zip lock bag and handed it to her.  She opened it, and the stench of rotted onions permeated the atmosphere.  Hastily, she closed the bag and gasped, “What is this?”

I told her, “It’s a complaint.  I bought these onions yesterday morning from you, intending to make some pies this morning.  However, not one of the onions was useable.  They looked perfect on the outside, shiny and healthy, but when I cut into them, they were soft and rotten on the inside.”

She wrinkled her nose.  “Yes, I can tell!  Do you mind waiting a moment while I dispose of this?” she asked, holding up the bag.

I nodded my assent, and she moved to the microphone.  Picking it up, she spoke into it.

“Would somebody from the fresh produce please come to the service desk?”  She held the bag further away from her, and added, “Immediately please!”

Turning back to me Helga said, “Do you have your docket with you?”

“Yes, here it is,” I replied, fumbling in my handbag for it.

She scanned down the list of items, and found the onions.  “Oh,” she said, “They were on special at $1 a kilo.  No wonder they were past their best.”

“Past their best!” I yelped. “They’re unfit for human consumption.”

“I’m sorry”, she apologised, “But if they looked perfect on the outside, as you claim, then we can’t be held responsible for selling you faulty produce.  It’s our suppliers at fault, not us.  We buy fruit and veges in good faith.”

I was getting riled by now.  “Your onions have been awful lately.  They are tough even when fried within an inch of their lives!  And last week I bought some beetroot from here and when I steamed them, they were tough and woody, and practically tasteless.”

During my diatribe, she kept protesting, “Sorry, but…” but I steamrollered over her protests.

“I want my money back!” I fumed.  “I’ve had it up to here with your below standard fruit and veges.  From now on, I’m going to buy them from the greengrocer around the corner.  I don’t mind paying extra if it means I can actually eat them!”

“Please don’t take it out on me, Madam.  I’ll call the store manager for you.  You need to take it up with him,” she finally got a word in.

“See this walking stick?”  I stopped leaning heavily on it, held it up and waved it at her.  “I’m disabled, and I can’t stand around here waiting for your boss to decide to come down and do your job for you.  Just refund my money so that I can go and buy some decent onions, and I’ll send him a letter of complaint later.”

“Very well, Madam,” she said, heavily emphasising the Madam.  “But first I must offer to replace them for you, store rules.”

Being a lady, I can’t repeat my next words to her, but the line of customers behind me at the service desk cheered and applauded me.

“Good onya love,” called out one old lady.  “They’ve been selling us rubbish for too long now.  You tell ‘em!”  Shouts of approval greeted her pronouncement, and chants of “Give her the money!” began to echo throughout the shopping centre.

In panic, Helga reached for the microphone, and yelled into it.  “Get me the manager, right now.  There’s a riot starting down here.”

The tall dark Security guard, looking very smart in his uniform, arrived just before the manager, and attempted to calm things down, but things had got out of hand by now and his voice was virtually unheard among the clamour from the mob, and he used his walkie talkie to call for back-up.  “I don’t know how it started,” I heard him say, “but it’s getting ugly.  You’d better get someone over here right away.”

“She threatened me with her walking stick,” screamed the by now hysterical Helga.  “It’s not safe to work here.  We’re always getting thugs in here threatening us, and it’s gone too far this time.  I want her charged with assault,” she demanded.

“Is this true?” the guard asked me.

“No, don’t be daft.  I only waved it at her to show her I’m disabled and couldn’t stand here for ages waiting for my complaint to be sorted out.  Look, like this.”  I waved my stick in his general direction.  If a black man could be said to turn pale, then he did.  Grabbing his gun from its holster, he pointed it at me.

“Now then, Madam,” he warned me in his most official voice.  I think you’d better stop threatening people with that stick and come with me to the Centre Manager’s office.”

At the sight of his gun, the crowd, already incensed, redoubled their abuse, but this time it was directed at the guard. I was beginning to enjoy myself by this time.  The whole situation had got out of hand, and I wondered if they were going to examine my walking stick to see if it had a sword concealed in it.

Two more uniformed Security personnel pushed their way through the crowd, and one of them blew a whistle.  Silence fell.

“Now let’s not be silly,” he announced.  “We need to take this lady to the Centre Manager’s office, and we can do it the easy way or the hard way.”  I suspected he’d been watching too many cop shows on TV, and had been waiting for an excuse to say that.

“Very well,” I said.  “I’ll come quietly.”  He wasn’t the only one who watched a lot of TV.  “But I want my money back first!”

Ignoring that, he took hold of my elbow, and advised me to come along with him.

“Young man, I said I want my money back first,” I objected, pulling my arm from his grip.  “I’m not going anywhere until this shop does the right thing by its customers.”

“I’m sorry madam, but you’ve incited a riot, and you are coming with me if I have to pick you up and carry you.”  He took me by the shoulders and turned me towards the Centre Manager’s office, while his accomplice took my walking stick from me.  I suppose he thought he was disarming me, but by depriving me of my walking aid, he gave the crowd fresh ammunition.

“Leave the poor old lady alone,” shouted a big burly man, and the uproar increased while the guards ushered me down the corridor to the Centre Manager’s office.  Some of the mob followed, and stood outside the door, shouting while the guards explained as best they could to the manager why we were all there.

“We need to interview the young lady on the service desk, but what I saw for myself was this old lady here demanding money with menaces from Coles Supermarket.  Then she incited a riot and resisted arrest,” explained the first guard.  I revoked my first impression of him as handsome, and decided that he was nothing more than a flashy young upstart.

“Right,” decided the manager.  “We’d better call in the Police and let them deal with her.”  He turned to me and put a fierce look on his face.  “You sit there on that seat Madam, and wait quietly until the Police get here,” he ordered.

“Will everybody stop calling me Madam!” I exploded, “And what are the Police likely to do with me?”

“I suspect you’ll be charged with attempted robbery under arms, breach of the peace, and resisting arrest,” he snapped.

I huddled in my seat, starting to feel alarmed now.  All this, just because of a few onions!

Well, the Police took me to the Police Station and charged me with demanding money with menaces.  I was hauled up before the Magistrate, and was eventually allowed to state my case.

The Magistrate was a nice lady, a bit toffee nosed, but she sympathised with my onion debacle, and told me she had bought some of the same batch herself.  She dismissed all charges against me, saying, “Mrs Morgan, you have clearly been subjected to great provocation.  I order that the Centre Management return your walking stick immediately, and I instruct Coles Supermarket to refund money your money for the onions.”

The Centre’s representative grudgingly handed over my walking stick which was still labelled Exhibit Number One, and I hobbled slowly out of the courtroom.

I was hailed in the local newspaper as the old lady who stood up to the Coles Goliath, and I received many phone calls and letters of support from strangers, even small gifts of money from other pensioners who had suffered at the hands of Coles Supermarkets.

But those blasted pies never did get made!