Honest to a fault...

So, picture the scene...

It's Saturday morning. La Famille Potty is heading for a shop on High St Kensington, having dragged ourselves out of bed early (for the weekend, anyway), in order to miss the pre-Christmas shopping rush. We found a parking spot somewhere in outer Nebraska - bearing in mind we live a mile away it would probably have been quicker to walk - and the weather god decided that to serve us right for being so unenvironmentally friendly, he would do exactly what he had been threatening to do when we decided to take the car, and unleash a deluge from the heavens. But not, of course, until we were half way between the car and the shops, having decided that no, we wouldn't need our umbrellas after all...

I say: I've been thinking for a while now that I really must buy one of those barbour type hats for situations like this...

He says: God, you're turning into my mother

I say: Have you ever tried pushing the buggy and holding an umbrella? (we have a pantechnicon buggy, btw. A word to the wise - never leave it until the last stages of pregnancy to go buggy shopping, when pre-birth hormones and back pain make you take your eye off the ball for long enough that your husband can persuade you an 'off-road' version is necessary for the mean streets of Chelsea. On the other hand, we're still using it 4 years and 2 children later...)

Boy #1 says: Mama, mama! My gloves are getting wet! (We really need to get him on an Outward Bound course soonest.)

Boy #2 says: nothing. He is smugly silent in the depths of the pantechnicon, enjoying the comfortable tent-like sensation of being warm and dry whilst the rest of drip forlornly along the pavement...

We reach the shop, wet and cross. After sending a hapless sales assistant out the back to look for particular sizes we discover that oh, actually they're on the rail already, and the boys are half undressed at the back of the shop by the time he returns to tell us that there is no more stock, so he can't help us. Never mind, I say. We'll try and make do with these...

A hot half hour ensues, pushing and pulling Boys #1 and #2 into and out of various matching jacket and salopette combos (yes, I had better come clean. Not only do we drive to High St Ken, but we are going on that most environmentally unfriendly of holidays, a ski trip. Come on - it's Sunday and my husband has spent the whole day in the office; I have to have something to look forward to...).

We make a decision; Boy #1 gets the reasonably OK stuff as he is supposedly going to actually have a go at skiing this year. (Although given the moaning about wet gloves I'm beginning to wonder how successful that will be). We go for a larger size, obviously - so he may even get to wear it twice. Once when he has his first ski lesson this year and then refuses to go back again, and once next. Boy #2 gets the cheap stuff since all he will be doing is rolling about in the snow. Although given his adventuresome tendancies I have images in my head of his stealing his brother's skis and stomping off up the slope to show that woosy older brother of his how it's done...

(Don't laugh. It's more than possible... )

I take it up to the till point to pay.

Assistant says: That'll be £xx.xx

I say: Are you sure? (Thinking simultaneously; I'm sure that should be around £30 more and shut up! shut up!)

She says: Yes, £xx.xx

I say: I really think it might be more. I'm sure those salopettes are charged separately. (Thinking: What are you doing? Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!)

She says: I don't think so (clearly thinking; who is this wet crazy bxxch trying to pay more than she needs to?)

I say: You should check (Thinking: when Husband finds out, you are SO going to get it for this).

Husband arrives with the boys in tow, having spent the last 10 minutes trying to pull Boy #1 away from the cabinet with the goggles in. Boy #1 may not be your outdoorsy type, but he already knows how to accessorise... The assistant is grumpily checking her catalogue, and after 4 minutes of leafing through finally finds the right page. A queue is building up behind me, and I hear consternation and whispers of 'can you believe she's pointed out she should be paying MORE?'

He says quietly: You're not doing what I think you are, are you?

I think: Busted.

She says: Oh yes, that's right. That'll be £xxx.xx (note the additional 'x').

I hand over my credit card, waiting for the 'thankyou'. Which never comes.

Well!

And I am. SO in trouble... I tried to blame pre-Christmas madness, my dad's honest gene, and the fact that I have a pathalogical fear of being found out (which is probably all that the 'honest gene' ever is), but Husband's not buying it. He just thinks it's idiotic. He has a point - we've spent enough money in that shop recently; we deserve a discount...

But what would YOU have done?