WHENEVER I’m mopping or hoovering and a family member is in the way, I’ve started saying “unidentified object in bagging area” in the voice of R2D2. No-one finds it amusing, apart from me, and I only find it funny because it’s the most annoying catchphrase of the 21st century.

It is matched in the irritation stakes only by the nasally voice of the satnav which remains calm and disinterested while I’m blowing a gasket because it’s sending me down a road that doesn’t exist.

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UOIBA has ruined my day on more than one occasion. For starters, we tend to use automated tills in supermarkets when we’re in a hurry. Did you hear that Mr Tesco, Morrison and Sainsbury? IN A HURRY! The clue here is that they’re supposed to save time.

I, personally, would prefer to put my single grapefruit on a conveyor belt and smile broadly when the cashier asks me if I want help with my packing. But it’s not nice to be selfish.

So I queue up with the rest and watch bemused as the frustration mounts and assistants run from till to till righting errors with that magical tool they all carry to keep us from slapping them.

I’ve observed several types of angry automated till user. There’s the exasperated pensioner who presses every button on the screen and jumps out of his skin when assailed with UOIBA; the stressed-out mother of four boys, one of whom is the unidentified object by virtue of the fact that he’s sitting in the bagging area – “Gerroff it Kyle!” she screams, thereby identifying the snotty-nosed object in the bagging area.

There are others who put through the entire week’s shopping for a family of six blissfully unaware a queue has doubled up around the store. And let’s not forget the slooooow as a sloooth person, who scans every angle of every item looking for barcodes.

Then there’s me, who invariably puts her handbag in the bagging area because she doesn’t want to leave it on the floor to get nicked. It gets me every time.

I even look at my bag in the bagging area and wonder why the machine can’t work out the difference between a Ted Baker nappa leather number and a plastic shopper.

The unidentified object in the bagging area, is in fact a bag. Nah, see, not so clever now, damn till! I may be proving a point, but I can’t leave until an assistant has freed me from bag-lock.

It’s little wonder that a recent survey has found that more people are turning to their corner shop for single items.