I went to Tesco’s extra yesterday, and bought myself a Christmas tree. It was pretty heavy, but I was waiting for my car to be cleaned and wanted to sit in the cafe. So I said to the self-checkout guy, “I want to go and sit in the cafe over there. This pots heavy— can I nick a trolley?!”. He looked at me pretty seriously, and responded with, “you can go to the cafe… but no, you cannot nick a trolley”. I looked at him blankly… I couldn’t understand why he seemed worried about me using a trolley?!

“You mean I can’t nick a trolley, so that I can go sit in the cafe without having to carry this heavy pot of tree?!”; He persisted, “you just can’t nick it!”. I looked at him blankly, “I mean I wouldn’t get very far with it— I drove in here. I just want to sit in the cafe?!?”. He again, looked at me blankly. “OH! You actually think I mean to steal it?! Have you never had some ask to ‘nick your phone for a sec’? I simply mean that I would like to use a trolley to carry this very heavy Christmas tree to the cafe, so that I can sit in the cafe”.

He looked very confused, “that’s fine— as long as you bring it back”. “I’ll just carry it, don’t worry”, and off I walked carrying a big heavy pot of tree. I felt SO embarrassed and left instead. Oh shit— I’ve used the word ‘nick’, for years, and so have others, in exchange for ‘borrow’, as a sarcastic joke (I’m from Essex and it’s not unusual to use cockney slang). It was even a popular joke made often by customers, when I worked in retail.

So then I realised— for me, this must be the moment of moments in your life, when you realise the end of an era, of something you grew up with. The word ‘nick’ is obviously taken more seriously now; ya know, because people do genuinely Nick things. Which I do understand. But people don’t usually ask to steal something; I did chuckle, but I also felt sad, because phrases I knew growing up are slowly disappearing. I really do feel worlds apart to gen Z. 😣🥲

© Lois Christina