Man leaves wife for self-service checkout

Ayr, Scotland - Donald Donaldson, 47, today left his wife of 23 years, Rita, for a self-service checkout in his local supermarket.

Donaldson fell in love with the voice of the automated checkout in his local Tesco store, and has been spending evenings in the shop next to the checkout, waiting for what he thinks is a woman who will emerge from the machine at closing time.

Donaldson told the PCP: "She's everything to me. I'm walking on air when I hear her voice. Just listening to her - and that's the limit of our interaction currently - is enough to know: She completes me."

A spokesman for the Tesco store told us: "The guy thinks there's a woman in the machine. Talking to him. We have to remove him every night - physically throw him out of the store. One night, at about 3 a.m., our security found him standing naked and hugging and kissing the checkout. Around it he'd placed flowers, chocolate, a glass of champagne. There were romantic notes, too. He must have hid in here after closing."

Donaldson, has twice left wife, Rita, in the past ten years. In 1997, he had a short affair with an automated phone payment service for an electricity provider, and a full blown romance with the Glasgow Central railway station automated announcer.