My trip to Sainsbury's

The price of celery these days! 97p at Sainsbury's. I was so shocked I asked the supermarket employee to check again. It was only 68p a few months ago.  Soon all the poor people in this country will be thin again.  


I saw a young man with one of those wheelchair attachable trolleys with his carer as I went round the aisles.


I found myself behind him and his carer at the check-out.  I noticed his carer letting him take two items from the trolley and painstakingly and slowly place it on the belt.  It took him a great deal of effort, but he was very determined.


To my surprise, the carer was paying with the young man's credit card, asking for his PIN, which he repeated audibly enough for me to hear before keying it in on his behalf.  

The young man seemed very alert and assertive for someone incapable of speaking; I saw him making his carer stop to give his credit card back to him.  


This of course suggested he had not always been like that, which made his condition even more pitiable.  I asked the woman at the check-out if she knew what had happened the young man and she supposed he must have had an accident.  


My friend with whom I went shopping said he saw his carer hugging and kissing him (perhaps his father?) while they were going round the aisles. 


I am no doctor, though I am related to one and come from a family of proud hypochondriacs, but he reminded me a little of Stephen Hawking, and so I am inclined to think it was motor neurone disease.  The check-out lady called him "young man" but it seemed to me unintentionally patronising.  But how would such a person in such a condition wish to be addressed?  By their name, I suppose.