An hour of my life I won't get back

I hate being late for things and today I managed the mother of all late arrivals, showing up late to my own house with invited guests standing shivering on the doorstep.

How did this all come about? Blame Asda. That's right. It's all their fault.

We were in Asda buying some pizzas to feed our guests, when we noticed a chap buying two Nintendo Wii consoles. It looked a bit odd, so I asked the girl on the computers and DVD desk how much the Wiis were. She said they were the amazingly low price of £99.97.

Cath and I conferred for all of a minute before deciding this was such a bargain we really had to get one. The only problem was they only had two left and they were both reserved for other customers. But the girl said if either of the other customers hadn't turned up in an hour she'd sell one to us.

There are only so many ways to kill an hour in Asda. I read a couple of magazines. Cath looked at the clothes. I found a copy of Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes in a special edition tin, and Cath said she'd give it to me for Christmas, to help me nearer my goal of owning every Tim Burton film on DVD. But still it was a drag until the hour was up.

The reservers hadn't turned up and I excitedly thought I was getting a baragin Wii. But then when they rang through the Wii, it came up at £179.97. I queried the price and the stupid shopgirl told me the price she'd originally said had been for a Nintendo DS, not a Wii.

I was tamping.

Not only had we waited a bloody age for a bargain that never was, we then had to queue up to buy all the other crap in our trolley and that made us late to get home to our waiting guests. And I hate being late, as I said. So imagine how much I hated being late for a get-together at my own house!