Hello and welcome to the English Like A Native podcast.
My name is Anna and you're listening to week 39, day 5 of Your English Five A Day, the second season.
Today is the day when we bring together all the vocabulary that we've been focused on this week.
So there are 20 items that we've deep dived into and you've heard many short stories.
Well, today we bring all those items together into one big story.
Now, this story is based on one of my experiences.
I do hope that you enjoy it.
So sit back, relax and listen to a steaky situation.
It had been a long week.
Anna was up to her eyeballs in work, mum life, meal planning and general plate spinning.
Friday evening finally rolled around and she was in the kitchen clearing up a tornado of crayons and rice cakes when Nick, her partner, strolled in proudly balancing a few bulging supermarket bags like a contestant on supermarket sweep.
Right, he said, dropping the bags on the counter with a thud.
Got us dinner.
Anna raised an eyebrow.
Please don't tell me it's another protein shake and boiled eggs situation.
Nick grinned.
Nope.
Proper food.
I've been craving steak all week.
Steak and greens, man fuel.
Gains, baby.
Anna rolled her eyes affectionately.
He'd been on a serious muscle-building kick recently, throwing himself into training like it was a full-time job.
He was practically dreaming in sets and reps.
Every meal had to be strategic, protein-packed, optimised.
She started unpacking the bags.
Courgettes avocados, sweet potatoes spinach, and then, nestled between a punnet of blueberries and a bag of frozen peas, she found them.
''Steak,'' she announced, holding up the package.
''Actual steak.
This is progress.''
But something caught her eye.
Two things, in fact.
Attached to each vacuum-sealed packet of beef was a large, rigid security tag.
The kind that typically sets off alarms and requires a member of staff with a special gadget to remove it.
She blinked at them.
Nick?
He looked up from where he was, unwrapping a protein bar.
Yeah?
Yeah?
Did you pay for these?
He snorted.
Of course I paid.
What do you take me for?
She turned the steak slightly.
Because unless Waitrose is doing some kind of new cook it with a tag on trend, we've got a problem.
Nick walked over, peered at the steaks and then slapped his forehead dramatically.
Oh, that explains it.
Anna folded her arms.
Explains what exactly?
Well, when I left the shop, the alarm went off, but you know how it is.
Those things are always beeping for someone or other.
Nobody looked twice, so I just kept walking.
Anna stared at him.
And you didn't think to check your bags or, oh, I don't know, go back inside?
I thought it was someone else, he said defensively.
Honestly, the whole place was beeping like a pinball machine.
She shook her head, part amused, part exasperated.
How did you even get these without the tags being removed?
I did scanners your shop.
Ah, so you were totally unsupervised.
Exactly.
It's the dream.
You don't have to speak to a single soul.
Anna frowned.
Yes well, the downside of total independence is that you sometimes leave with anti-theft devices still attached to your sirloin.
They decided to cook the steaks anyway.
Nick tried to remove the plastic tags with a screwdriver, but had more luck with an old pair of scissors.
He left the tags and the tools on the side, looking like artefacts from a minor crime scene.
Anna half-joked that they looked like the sort of things someone might try to launder through an over-ambitious returns policy.
After dinner they laughed about what the neighbours would think if they saw them with a steak and a screwdriver.
This behaviour would certainly raise a few eyebrows among some of their upmarket friends.
A week later, Anna forgot about the tags completely until one dull Monday morning.
She was rushing to get out of the door, running late as usual, armed with a shopping list and half a cold coffee.
The tags.
Just sitting there on the passenger seat, mocking her.
She groaned, Oh, for goodness sake, Nick.
It was obvious what had happened.
He'd put them there for her to return the next time she was heading to the shop.
The logic, presumably, being, you're going that way anyway.
Of course, returning anything to a shop is awkward, but returning security tags?
That's another level.
Anna drove to the supermarket in a state of growing unease.
As she pulled into the car park, her mind was already spiralling.
What if they don't believe me?
What if they think I'm trying to cover up a theft?
What if they call security and I end up on some internal watch list?
She sat there for a few minutes, engine off, tags in hand, weighing up her options.
Plan A. Walk in confidently and hand them over.
Honesty is the best policy.
Plan B, dispose of them discreetly.
Plan C, pretend this never happened and shove them in the glove compartment for eternity.
Plan B was tempting.
Maybe she could leave them in a stairwell.
But as she peered around the car park, she realised there were cameras everywhere.
Plan C was realistic, but then she'd be haunted by them every time she reached into the glove box.
Plan A it was.
She took a deep breath, shoved the tags in her bag and marched towards the entrance.
As she crossed the threshold, the inevitable happened.
The security alarm blared.
She froze for a split second.
Caught in that awkward, do I stop or do I act like nothing happened?
Limbo.
No one approached, no staff, no concerned glances.
She kept walking.
Of course she thought bitterly the one time I want someone to notice they're all busy rearranging apples.
She made a beeline for the checkout area and scanned the staff.
One woman looked warm, approachable.
Possibly a grandma?
That would do.
She queued up behind an elderly man, buying three tins of soup and a packet of digestive biscuits.
He had the slightly rumpled look of someone who might once have been better off but was now a bit down and out.
When it was finally her turn, she leaned in slightly, lowered her voice and said...
Hi.
Sorry, this is a bit odd.
My partner did Scanners You Shop last week and accidentally took these home.
He paid, but forgot to get them removed.
She reached into her bag and produced the tags like they were contraband.
The cashier blinked at her and then blinked again.
Oh, she said.
Right.
Um, thanks.
Anna offered a sheepish smile.
I didn't really know what to do with them.
The woman took the tags, looked mildly confused and set them aside.
Anna quickly walked away.
She thought she was in the clear until she heard the cashier call over a colleague.
Anna could feel it, the unmistakable burn of eyes on her back.
She turned into the fruit aisle and started inspecting a banana with the intensity of a forensic expert.
Why am I trying to look innocent?
I am innocent.
I'm no criminal.
This is absurd.
She carried on shopping, trying to act normal, though her cheeks remained slightly flushed the entire time.
She half expected to be pulled aside at any moment, interrogated under harsh strip lighting and asked to explain why she'd brought contraband steak tags into a national supermarket chain.
She also found herself thinking with a little grimness about how some people discreetly exploit self-service systems to slip goods out or even prey upon busy staff, turning honest set-ups into opportunities for small-time scams.
It made her glad she'd actually tried to do the right thing.
But no-one approached.
No alarms went off.
No security guards wrestled her to the ground near the nectarines.
Eventually, she paid for her groceries, walked out untagged and got back in the car.
She sat there for a second heart, still racing from the ridiculousness of it all, and then burst out laughing.
Well, she thought, at least I did the right thing, even if I looked like a lunatic doing it.
And that slightly exaggerated version of my experience brings us to the end of today's episode and to the end of week 39.
Can you believe it?
Next week, we'll start week 40, 40 weeks of the five a day.
Have you listened every week?
Well, thank you so much for lending me your eardrums today.
I do hope you found it enjoyable and useful of course.
Remember all the vocabulary that we've deep dived into this week and every week is recorded in our free database, the master sheet of the five a day.
I'll leave a link to that in the show notes.
Until next time, take very good care of yourself and goodbye.
