An open letter to the manager of Tesco in Ballybrack.

Dear Sir,

I am writing to let you know about my shopping experience in your store yesterday. It started so well when I managed to park right outside the door and get a trolley that steered in a straight line. We'd just finished choosing our fruit and vegetables when Ben, my six year old, needed the toilet. As you are aware your store does not have a public toilet but the staff are very good about letting children use their toilets so I approached the men behind the meat counter. They told me they were very sorry but were not allowed to open the door for me, I would have to find Adrian. Now I know Adrian as the rude manager who walked away from me once mid conversation when I dared bring back mouldy tortillas without a receipt.

So I went looking for Adrian but he was nowhere to be found. Next I went to the lovely girl at customer services who called Adrian about five times, still no Adrian. Ben started doing the jig a boy does when he needs to go. Eventually the lovely girl gave up on Adrian and called over another important looking man in a suit. This man explained that he had to drop off some cash then would come and open then door. I told him that I thought it was ridiculous that in this day a large store which caters for families has no toilet facilities. I also told him that he was very lucky that Ben was able to hold himself and if he'd been younger he wouldn't have been able to wait the last 10 minutes and they would be calling a cleaner to clean up the pool of urine on the floor. The man in the suit said he understood but we still had to wait another five minutes before the door was unlocked.

Ben relieved we continued our shopping without any hassles. I didn't mind waiting for another five minutes for someone to scan my wine as the girl on the checkout I chose was too young, I was nearly done and out of there. At last, on the home straight, we swept through the door only for the security alarm to go off 'beep, beep, beep' very loudly and everyone looking at us like we were criminals. I looked at the top I had purchased for Ben and realised that the checkout girl had forgotten to take off the security tag. This happened last time I purchased an item of clothing in your store so I really think you need to teach your staff to remove all tags before customers leave the store (by the way not one member of staff or security came to see if I was stealing anything) and you need to build some public toilets.

Yours truly

Very annoyed customer.