The Sweetest Transaction

They say you can’t put a price on love, but sometimes it’s £1.50, scanned through on a Tesco till.

Working in a Tesco next to a block of student accommodation, most of my days behind the till blurred into the same routine: meal deals, multipacks of lager, and the occasional frantic 11pm dash for loo roll. Customers rarely looked me in the eye. Their focus was always elsewhere, on their phones, on their shopping, or on how quickly they could get through the queue.

And that was fine. I didn’t remember every face either. But every so often, someone stood out. It felt like a strange little privilege of the job, catching glimpses of humanity through the smallest transactions.

For me, that someone was a young man who showed up once a month, every month, without fail. And every time, he bought the same thing: chocolate.

Now, “regular customer” isn’t what you’d call someone who visits only every four weeks. But his timing was so steady it etched itself into my memory. I grew so curious that eventually I asked him why.

His answer disarmed me. He bought chocolate for his girlfriend whenever she had her period. She suffered badly each month, and chocolate helped ease the pain. Buying it was his way of showing love, of doing something, however small, that made those days a little more bearable.

From then on, I couldn’t help but smile whenever I saw him at the till. Every bar of chocolate he slid across the counter wasn’t just a sweet, it was a quiet gesture of care.

Then, one February evening, he surprised me. Instead of chocolate, he bought condoms. For a split second, my hand froze over the scanner. And then it hit me, it was Valentine’s Day.

Most people wait for Valentine’s to buy chocolate, to perform romance, to go big. But this man? He’d already been showing love all year long. Which is why, on that day of roses and teddies, even a box of condoms felt oddly romantic.

That’s the unexpected gift of working behind a Tesco till: seeing the little rituals of love and loyalty most people miss. I won’t be a cashier forever, but I’ll always remember this story. Because sometimes love isn’t grand or dramatic, sometimes it’s quiet, consistent, and scanned through the till with a Clubcard discount.