SHOPPING DAY 3

I was going to talk about my week but after shopping yesterday I don't have any memory of it. You're right Sam B., no good deed ever goes unpunished. After giving up my place at the taxi rank to two little old dears with a combined age of 185 who were urging me with their walking sticks to take the cab because I was first, everything that had happened got worse. If my guardian angel ever shows himself I'll have his throat. I had to wait an hour for another cab and by then there was a line of decrepit oldies on various walking aids behind me but I'd done my good deed. I was way into serious pain by this stage and I'd have trampled the first one into dust if they'd made a move towards that car.

The shopping centre had already annoyed me enough with Christmas Carols except for Safeway which was playing the 'fresh food' jingle. Forget it, Head office, it won't make me buy more of your over- priced rubbish. I could save myself the pain and suffering by shopping on line but I don't want garlic from China, avocados from New Zealand and oranges from California. By the time I was halfway round I was tired and that's when my knee went but I was hanging off a trolley, (you know the one, it takes a rugby team to move) so I didn't fall but I had to buy water and painkillers which weren't on my list and didn't help anyway.

Couldn't even ask the cute check-out boy for help because he's moved on which leaves nothing else worth perving at. I might have to go to plan B. Standing in the computer section of Dick Smith's and look bewildered, some of the computer geeks are cute. Plan C is trawling the underwear section of David Jones and looking bewildered. Women can get away with this, whereas a man standing in the lingerie section holding up 10 different kinds of bras is instantly labelled a pervert. I can get away with a lot more than that before warning signs go up. Boring underwear you blokes have. Why doesn't someone bring out a line in pure silk with a little gold trim, something I would want to sink my teeth into. Better go back to Safeway I'm starting to dribble.

Apart from the pain I started with I now had a head start on agony. I dropped things off shelves and kicked them through to the next aisle rather than pick them up, that's what lackeys are for.
Then I had a taste of what Howard's terrorist hysteria has done to ordinary people. I don't doubt that there are creeps out there who want to throw bombs and create havoc but that's what we have ASIO for, isn't it? I don't see why a beautiful young woman wearing a hajib, quietly doing some shopping should be the target of insults. She was in a top and pants with just a headscarf tied a la Audrey Hepburn and just as stunning and she shouldn't have had to put up with the remarks directed her way. So tit for tat Johnno, I'll be insulting you a lot more. So I end up where I started this, waiting for a cab.

Today wasn't much better. My mother rings me every morning to see if I've run away overseas or found a bloke and today she rang at 6.30 because she misheard the radio. Using her demented logic she said she did me a favour because I had to be up early to see Ma-in-Law.
Another hour flat on my back would have been nice since it's mother's genes that are turning my joint cartilage into something resembling biscuit crumbs. Ma-in-Law is fine but still wearing the same clothes as last time (they have been washed) because the Blight and the Blonde don't care enough to see she has clothes that button down the front as she can't lift her left arm to pull things over her head. This puts me in a bad mood, getting rained on walking makes me worse and topping up my mobile turns me pathetic because I haven't used the credits from the last top-up. I really need to get a life.

Rounding out a crappy day was getting a train full of teenagers, always educational. One precious darling had been drinking since 8 this morning. Two other grots had just had their noses pierced so the drunk decided to tell them, in graphic detail, about his friend whose nose fell apart after a bad piercing. Two behind me were ordering booze for their weekend binge. We don't have to worry about terrorists, young people are going to die from liver disease, radiation burns to the brain from mobiles and kidney failure from wearing those stupid jeans that barely cover anything and tops that cover nothing. I felt myself turning into a sour old tart so it was a pleasure to stagger home and kick a couple of whingeing cats.