A quick cuppa and 15 minutes of my life I'll never get back

I was walking through a park the other day and decided to nip into the café for a brew. I mean it made sense, after all there was no point nipping in to purchase some laminated wallpaper or, say, a Nissan Micra. Rarely are they on the menu I find.

- Steve Canavan

It was an old-fashioned establishment in that you had to queue at the front canteen-style and shuffle your way towards the till end where you placed your order. Then, depending on what you were ordering, they'd give you a ridiculously over-sized wooden spoon which, on the spoon bit, had a number scribbled on in black felt tip. Later on a 17-year-old girl with pimples would emerge from the kitchen area and in a booming voice which made the entire population of the café jump out of their seats, holler 'NUMBER 78' and if someone didn't respond within 0.5 seconds she'd scream even more loudly, '78, 78... BEANS ON TOAST, A BACON SANDWICH AND TEA FOR TWO'.

There were a couple of customers in front of me and I was in a relaxed mood so I kind of zoned out while waiting, thinking about how on earth Bury missed out on promotion to League One in the 1992-93 season... I mean if only Tony Rigby had buried that shot in the bottom corner we'd have beaten Exeter and made the playoffs.

But then I realised about seven minutes had passed and I still hadn't moved and that it was quite an unusually long amount of time to be waiting to get served at a very empty café.

I tuned back in just in time to see the man at the front of the queue move away from the till holding a tray on which was a pot of tea and a giant wooden spoon with the number seven scrawled on it.

The man in front of me shuffled forward.