Today I met my mother for lunch and we wandered down a major shopping street in central London afterwards.
As I recently discovered while having lunch at my mothers with 2 other guests she has only 3 forks, and indeed only 3 dining chairs. I had to sit on a footstool and she ate her dinner with a spoon
So we're walking past some of the big shops and she decides she wants to buy some forks. First shop - the kitchen section is downstairs and the lift is out of order. She's disabled and at the moment really can't do with stairs, so we go out and decide to at least window shop in the much more expensive much posher shop next door.
Now this shop is seriously expensive. They have the shower gel I love but have only ever had for Christmas or Birthday presents - £16 for a not at all huge bottle.
They do however have some fairly reasonably priced individual knifes, forks spoons. Turns out they don't actually have any at the moment, but...
We're looking at the displays which hold sets of each design almost but not quite vertical on foam surrounds. I gesture, knock the display and send cutlery flying
I feel like a fool. It makes a huge clattering noise right through the shop and also hurts as most of the set hit my foot in an open toed sandal.
A member of staff comes up, I'm bright red because I was a clumsy fool. I've gathered up the stuff and I'm putting it back. I say I don't need any help.
So left on my own I put everything back and discover (a) the display is missing pieces. The foam surround is held on by two screws at the top, and should be held on by two more at the bottom. They are missing. That's how when I hit the display the foam moved and everything fell. Also a couple of the spoons have previously been blu tacked into place suggesting that they know they are unstable.
So we go back to walking through the store, but as we go into the next section (Christmas decorations all ready !) I realise that my foot is bleeding. A couple of tiny punctures (a fork !) and a long broken scratch (clearly from a serated knife). Nothing serious, but it does hurt a little, and had marked my foot quite obviously. It also means I may have got blood on their display...
My mother thinks I should make a fuss. I am still embarrassed about being clumsy, but yes the incident should be reported. I track down the man who saw the original accident and explain.
He wanders off and tries to get me a plaster (not really needed) and then says he can't get into the office where the first aid kit is kept. Which is really quite worrying (and possibly illegal). I explained I just wanted to make sure it was reported, and that they were aware of the problem with the display.
I'm considering writing. I don't think they handled it properly (and I'm not convinced he did record the accident), and if the display hadn't been broken I wouldn't have hurt myself. I would be very amenable to vouchers - that would bring that shower gel into my price range. I was joking to my mother that I wished I'd lost a toe because they had wonderful silly bright purple chandeliers for £650... but I don't want to be the kind of sucky customer who vulture vouchers , or who blames stores for their mistakes. And if I hadn't been clumsy I'd never have knocked the display.
Advice please ?
And if anyone wants advice - don't drop an entire place setting of heavy cutlery on your foot. It hurts.
Victoria J
As I recently discovered while having lunch at my mothers with 2 other guests she has only 3 forks, and indeed only 3 dining chairs. I had to sit on a footstool and she ate her dinner with a spoon

So we're walking past some of the big shops and she decides she wants to buy some forks. First shop - the kitchen section is downstairs and the lift is out of order. She's disabled and at the moment really can't do with stairs, so we go out and decide to at least window shop in the much more expensive much posher shop next door.
Now this shop is seriously expensive. They have the shower gel I love but have only ever had for Christmas or Birthday presents - £16 for a not at all huge bottle.
They do however have some fairly reasonably priced individual knifes, forks spoons. Turns out they don't actually have any at the moment, but...
We're looking at the displays which hold sets of each design almost but not quite vertical on foam surrounds. I gesture, knock the display and send cutlery flying
I feel like a fool. It makes a huge clattering noise right through the shop and also hurts as most of the set hit my foot in an open toed sandal. A member of staff comes up, I'm bright red because I was a clumsy fool. I've gathered up the stuff and I'm putting it back. I say I don't need any help.
So left on my own I put everything back and discover (a) the display is missing pieces. The foam surround is held on by two screws at the top, and should be held on by two more at the bottom. They are missing. That's how when I hit the display the foam moved and everything fell. Also a couple of the spoons have previously been blu tacked into place suggesting that they know they are unstable.
So we go back to walking through the store, but as we go into the next section (Christmas decorations all ready !) I realise that my foot is bleeding. A couple of tiny punctures (a fork !) and a long broken scratch (clearly from a serated knife). Nothing serious, but it does hurt a little, and had marked my foot quite obviously. It also means I may have got blood on their display...
My mother thinks I should make a fuss. I am still embarrassed about being clumsy, but yes the incident should be reported. I track down the man who saw the original accident and explain.
He wanders off and tries to get me a plaster (not really needed) and then says he can't get into the office where the first aid kit is kept. Which is really quite worrying (and possibly illegal). I explained I just wanted to make sure it was reported, and that they were aware of the problem with the display.
I'm considering writing. I don't think they handled it properly (and I'm not convinced he did record the accident), and if the display hadn't been broken I wouldn't have hurt myself. I would be very amenable to vouchers - that would bring that shower gel into my price range. I was joking to my mother that I wished I'd lost a toe because they had wonderful silly bright purple chandeliers for £650... but I don't want to be the kind of sucky customer who vulture vouchers , or who blames stores for their mistakes. And if I hadn't been clumsy I'd never have knocked the display.
Advice please ?
And if anyone wants advice - don't drop an entire place setting of heavy cutlery on your foot. It hurts.
Victoria J



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