The store on the way to the station
Was manned by an outsized Alsatian.
‘Pray, are you a grocer?’
I asked. It said ‘No sir,
You’re having an hallucination.’

The products of our imagination often seem programmed to mislead; but as this instance shows, we should study to ask them The Right Question … in this case , something like ‘Please may I have an apple and a banana, in a brown paper bag, to sustain me on the journey up to town?’ It is seldom appropriate to challenge a shopkeeper’s professional credentials.