The shopping cloud and scrambled egg

Gawd, I hate shopping. Clothes shopping. For a woman. With a woman. It’s Ka’s birthday tomorrow and I offered to take her shopping on Thursday afternoon, as a treat. As usual though, and absolutely true to form, my patience faltered, shook and then crumbled after an hour or so of obediently following, nodding and, under some stupid, ridiculous notions of helpfulness, suggesting items from the various fashion shops within the EK shopping centre.
It’s always an hour with me. Without fail. Whenever I end up clothes shopping with the wife, I always, without fail, after an hour of pretence and politeness, gain a particularly grey cloud which descends over my head, instantly transforming my mood. The shopping cloud makes me grumpy, impatient, irritable and, most of all, bored. Bored to the very core. So bored I was pestering God to end my inexcusable life whilst standing, dozing outside the New Look Fitting Rooms. The young shop assistants looking at me quizzically as they strode by in their funky tops whilst gossiping among themselves, probably wondering who the nearby guy, collapsing mumbling to himself in low, mumbling, ritual like, intensity was.
To make matters worse, I had forgotten the schools are all off at the moment so the daytime, weekday town centre was not only full of it’s usual old folk, mobility scooters and the folk in serious need of a bath but was full of noisy, irritating kids.
The younger ones wobbling around, stopping dead before you on their wee leads whilst their mothers stopped to window shop or meet their pal Janet, or Moira, a few meters off in another direction. They stand and chat, paying little head to where their little one is, knowing that they’re on the other end of the multi coloured strap. You move round to avoid the child lead just as the mother decides to move round and you end up getting half tangled in the child's rein or performing some kind of limbo routine in the middle of the shopping mall.
What is that anyway, kids on leads? Dogs go on leads, not kids. Kids go in buggys and when they start walking, should be allowed to walk free, not restrained like an unruly pet.
The older kids, otherwise known as teenagers, slouch round in packs. Maybe they should be the ones on leads. They shuffle about, communicating by making strange groaning noises under their breath, laughing like Beavis and Butthead, sexes indistinguishable under the various forms of hairstyles and hoodies.
Oh, to have the hair for a hairstyle again... I remember when I had hair, in the latter teenage years, though I never styled it. I think I went for the more natural look. I was aiming for the Bon Jovi or Jorge Cadete look but I think I ended up with something more akin to the Worzel Gummidge look.
It was my day off. It should have been great to be out the office. Out, away from the quiet, half barren workspace. A Mac scrap heap now lies at the top of the office. Piles of old macs, stacked with wires and keyboards tangled and wrapped around them like some kind of Modern Art piece depicting the continuation of the recession and the death of the busy office by Damien Hirst.
We’re now at the end of our first full week in the newly reformed and reduced production centre and it’s been a busy week. Tea breaks have been almost forgotten about, shifts have been the fastest passing in months, the property adverts seemed more of a struggle and just when I thought I was getting away from Classified planning, it’s back, rearing it’s ugly head again.
It’s Creamy Chicken John’s fault. He managed to get a week off this week, only after an half jesting argument with a doubting Felix about how he’d applied for it months ago. With only twelve people in the office producing the newspapers these days we’ll be lucky if we get any kind of holidays. We’ll just have to make the best of our days off.
Hopefully not spending them in the EK Shopping Centre. Saying that, there was a rather brilliant looking bouncy castle blown up outside HMV. When I say ‘blown up’ I mean as in set up, not actually exploded… that would have been much too exciting and may just have woken me up, bringing me out from under my shopping cloud.
Again though, too many kids. I wouldn’t have had a chance of getting a go on the massive bouncy slide with all those pesky school kids jumping about on it.
Anyway, it was all very selfish of me having that shopping cloud over me. It was my wife’s birthday, and I was out to buy her present so I shouldn’t complain. The task was successfully accomplished at the end of the day as my wife went home happy with yet another pair of new shoes and a new top. Another successful birthday present – but only with her help.
Though there is one surprise left but that one will have to wait till morning. And no, it’s not rude! And is not simply breakfast in bed. She can make breakfast herself. Ka will want scrambled egg and toast anyway, and we both know who makes the best scrambled egg…(it ain’t me).