Posh Shopping

'Posh Shopping'
There it was sitting invitingly, leaning up against the marmalade pot,
the big white envelope glowing with multicoloured hieroglyphics that
her sleepy eyes could not quite focus upon this early in the morning.
But she knew what the contents were, oh yes. After all the moronic hoop
jumping that the breakfast time D.J. had put her through on Radio Blare
Blare to win her prize. She knew what the envelope held for her!
There was a shuffling of old heavy tired feet behind her chair and her
father came in from the kitchen to join his daughter at the breakfast
table.
"Ay Penny love it's arrived then ain't you going to open it?"
"I will in a minute Dad, just need to get my eyes focused a bit first."
Penny replied to her Pa.
"Is it that prize you won then?"
"Yes Dad! I mean with a glaring envelope like that it couldn't be a
Council tax bill could it?" Penny felt a shiver of doubt and grabbed
for the envelope almost knocking the marmalade jar over in her haste to
reassure herself of it's contents. Slitting the packet open with
marmalade coated table knife Penny slid her podgy fingers inside and
pulled out yet more garish printed matter. After a few moments of
frantic thumbing through Penny eased out the important piece of paper
from the letter.
"Yes here it is Dad. A five-hundred-pound voucher to be spent at 'Posh
Stores'. Penny lifted the voucher to her lips and like the priest did
on Sundays blessed the offering with a kiss.
"A shopping we shall go." Penny sang whilst dancing round the breakfast
table until her thirteen-year-old daughter put in an appearance in the
kitchen doorway.
"Morning Mom, morning Granddad, What's all that dancing for?"
"It's come my prize has finally appeared!" her mother sang as she waved
the eye catching coupon in her daughter's face. Kylie grabbed at it but
her mum wouldn't let go.
"Don't you'll tear it!" Penny remonstrated with her daughter.
"I only want to see how much it's for,"Kylie retorted.
"Five hundred beautiful pounds sterling not a Euro in sight and it's
all mine to treat myself with."
"Oh mum but I need some new gear I've got a party to go to this weekend
and I haven't got anything to wear!" Penny wished she had as vibrant
and so full a social calendar as her teenage daughter, no one ever
asked her out anywhere. The thought saddened her and almost
put a damper on the day, five hundred pounds to spend on posh frocks
and no opportunity to bedazzle the eligible male.
"I could do with a new pair of thermals Penny love, always had them on
the boats we did, kept us warm on many a cold winters morn."
"Look you two" Penny started on them in her mini-matriarchal voice. "I
sweated blood to win this voucher, I mean all those idiot questions and
the rigmarole that Radio Blare Blare Dee-Jay put me through on his
breakfast show, making me shout out the kitchen window to all my
neighbours 'I'm a Radio Blare Blare Breakfast Babe' most
humiliating."
Penny, her Pa and Kylie found themselves outside the imposing front
entrance of the glorious emporium that was known throughout the city as
'Posh Stores'. Both her father and her daughter were honour bound to be
on their best behaviour, besides this was no mere Pound shop. This was
the stately home of consumerism and Penny did not want any day-tripper
behaviour from her nearest and dearest to spoil the pleasure of
spending all that money.
"Right let's go in I've a voucher burning a hole in my purse, let's
spend, spend, spend like that Viv woman did with her pools win." Penny
declared whilst accepting her Pa's arm and Kylie's exaggerated flunky
gesture of opening the main glass doors for her mother. Penny stepped
in to an Aladdin's cave of finery with her father and her flunky behind
her. They all paused on the great Welcome mat to stare in wonder at all
the consumer excesses arrayed all around them until the queue behind
them grew to bursting and they were swept into the main hall of
commerce like flotsam on an incoming tide.
"Well where do we start?" Penny said timidly, almost to herself but her
father heard his daughter's question and stepped right in with his
answer.
"To the men's wear department Penny love, on the third floor, for my
new thermals. With a sense of inadequacy and the feeling of her
voucher's shrinking value as she looked around at price tags on their
way up to the men's wear department, made Penny putty in her father's
guiding hand.
Reaching the men's wear department Penny was surprised to find it was
mostly inhabited by woman with their spouses reluctantly at heel on
their matrimonial dog leads. This was not how her Pa would play it she
thought as she strove to keep her qualms of inadequacy under
control.
A very smartly suited male floorwalker of indeterminable age approached
the little party.
"Look out here comes Mr Humpfreys!" Granddad said.
Kylie joined in with "Are you being served?" in a very camp little
voice.
"Stop it you two" hissed Penny.
"May I be of service madam?" The floorwalker said in a mature masculine
voice full of superficial care and concern.
"Yes you can," said Penny in her poshest voice, the one she uses on
Sundays to Father O'Reilly. "I've got this voucher and I intend to
spend it now. My father needs a pair of thermals he spends a lot of
time messing about on boats down on the cut." The Floorwalker and Penny
both turned to look at her father who was standing there a picture of
innocence, short and stocky, his heavy head moulded like a clay bust
was smiling up at the floorwalker as he stroked his large clay moulded
ear.
"A good thick pair, non of your cheap Chinese material." Her father
responded.
"Sir 'Posh Stores' sells only products of the very highest order. I
shall see if Mr Jones is free to assist you sir." So saying he turned
to a younger man in a similar suited uniform who was hovering in the
background. "Mr Jones are you free?" Even Penny had to turn away from
the floorwalker for a surreptitious chuckle. Kylie with the brashness
of youth laughed out loud and Granddad too old to care had an open
chortle. But they all managed to pull themselves together in time to
tell Mr Jones of Granddad's requirements. His requirements fulfilled by
Mr Jones, his insistence on wearing the new thermals once he'd tried
them on.
"Well I'm not going back in that changing room again Penny love might
as well keep them on now." Leaving the menswear department and Mr Jones
who was again free Penny felt that her voucher wasn't going to last the
pace.
Moving swiftly on through the many illuminated caverns and corridors of
this expansive cathedral of consumerism with all their senses being
bombarded by exotic perfumes, dancing display lights and sensuous
soothing music, Penny and her little party finally found themselves in
the ladies dress department. Both Penny and her daughter Kylie gasped
in pleasure at the feast of fantastic frocks and gowns that filled the
perfumed cavern.
"Mum, er please?" Kylie whimpered like a gundog sensing the falling
pheasant.
"Oh Kylie it's my voucher. Oh go on then but nothing too expensive."
Penny regretfully gave her permission. Granddad standing amongst all
this feminine finery, holding on to his 'Posh Shops' emblazoned carrier
bag containing his old thermals seemed content to stand and admire the
entertaining view of the female of the species sloughing skin after
skin like schizophrenic snakes driven by frantic social agendas.
"Mom," Kylie whispered as she watched her mother standing in front of a
full-length mirror examining herself minutely in a tight red dress that
hugged her lovely pear shaped figure, "Mom, see that man over there by
that display counter?"
"Yes, what about him?"
"He's been following us ever since we got here I'm sure of it." Penny
used the mirror she was facing to check on the man her daughter had
pointed out. He was in his thirties, trimly dressed, but looked out of
place and uncomfortable hovering around in the Ladies dress department
and yes, he seemed to be interested in her.
"Mom I think he fancies you!" Kylie jeered. Blushing as red as the
tight fitting dress she was trying on Penny replied "No he can't, no
he's probably one of the store detectives. He must think we're suspect
shoplifters! And by the way where has that master criminal, your
Granddad sloped off to?"
Penny and her daughter finished their purchases in the Ladies
department almost depleting her prize voucher but it was worth it. She
had succumbed to that tight fitting red dress after all and why not?
So, with their purchases in 'Posh Shops' carrier bags and Penny with
one eye on her follower, they set off to look for Granddad. They didn't
find him in the ladies' shoe department but both Penny and her daughter
had a good look though. As a consolation prize they each chose a pair
of shoes that would alleviate the temporary loss of Granddad. However
they had not lost Penny's 'admirer', he was still following them.
"I swear he fancies you Mum," said Kylie.
"No he's a store detective I'm sure of it. I mean who in their right
mind's going to fancy your poor old mother, I mean I wish someone would
sweep me off my feet but stuck with a mutinous teenage daughter and a
cantankerous old man as permanent appendages, I don't stand a chance do
I?"
"I suppose not Mum." Oh well Granddad and I are stuck with you then
Mum." The next port of call in looking for Granddad was the lingerie
department, a slim chance of finding their relative there they knew but
it had to be checked out. Such dedication to duty rewarded Penny with a
very petite set of underwear that would mortify a moth on a diet. She
also had the pleasure of seeing her devoted 'follower' show
self-conscious appreciation of her latest purchase. Things were looking
up! No he must be a store detective surely.
"I suppose we had better look for your Granddad properly now," Penny
spoke as she grabbed her carrier bags and left looking for the coffee
shop.
They found Granddad in the coffee bar tucked up at a corner table
chatting up a little old lady with purple hair and a carnivorous smile.
Muttering to herself as Penny went up to the counter "Good grief even
my dad is at it, spring must be in the air!" Leaving her Dad to his
prospective conquest, Penny deliberately sat at another table with her
back to him.
"He's on his own with that one, but you can sit with them and play
gooseberry if you like," she said when Kylie asked why she wasn't
sitting with the old man.
Penny looked up from her coffee to see sitting at the table before her
was her 'admirer'.
"Hello" he said in a gentle voice, "I'm Simon I do hope you don't mind
but I've been following you about this morning&;#8230;"
"Yes I know," she interrupted him. "My daughter thought you were a
store detective the way you've been following us around."
"Well actually I am a store detective for 'Posh Shops' but it has
nothing to do with my job, infact I could lose my job for what I am
about to do."
"And what pray is that?" Penny said in a hoity-toity voice. He looked
full into Penny's moon shaped face, smiled hesitatingly and then said
"I wanted to ask you out for a date that's all really. I was hoping we
could christen your new red dress in an evening out at my uncle's
restaurant, Italian food. You do like Italian don't you, if not we
could go somewhere else if you would do me the honour of
accepting."
Penny sipped at her coffee for a few moments to give herself time to
think. She looked at the man with an earnest expression on his face
almost pleadingly. She could see this big silver coin spinning over and
over again in her mind's eye slowly, slowly spinning heads, tails,
heads tails&;#8230; The coin slowly fluttered to the floor of her
mind. Was it heads or tails?
Penny gathered up her little flock of 'Posh Shops' carrier bags and
extricated her daughter and father from the clutches of the
purple-headed vampire lady.
"Time to go home I think, if you two are ready?" she proclaimed. The
little entourage gently filed out through the halls of consumer glories
in search of the front entrance. They were just marching through the
front foyer to go out into the afternoon sunshine when all hell broke
out. A screeching siren wailed up and down like a goat being strangled,
two uniformed security guards dashed up to the little party like storm
troopers on a mission, fellow patrons turned to glare at the little
party huddled in the searchlights of inquisition.
"Oh my Gawd!" shrieked Penny in utter horror "what's going on?"
"I'm sorry lady but we will have to look in your bags," explained the
more important security guard.
"What I can't hear you what? Oh that's better," Penny said in a whisper
as someone finally put the goat out of it's misery. The security guard
searched Penny's shopping bags.
"Nothing wrong there thank you lady," he said to Penny. "Now your bags
please Miss, thank you." Just as Kylie was handed back her bags Penny
saw her 'admirer' Simon arrive on the scene. 'Oh no more
embarrassment,' she thought, but no he had a concerned look on his face
as he smiled at his Aphrodite. Then it was Granddad's turn, the solid
little old man handed over his carrier bag in a gentle unconcerned
manner but Penny knew he was going to embarrass her. The security
guard's hand pulled out Granddad's old pair of Long johns that he had
exchanged for the new items he was wearing. The security guard stuffed
them back in hurriedly.
"Okay let's try it again," he said to the little trio. Again they
marched through the security sensors in the main doorway. Again the
resurrected goat began to wail. They stepped back as the puzzled guards
scratched their heads in consternation. Then to Penny's everlasting
embarrassment, her father stepped forward and dropped his trousers to
his ankles in front of one and all.
Outside on the wide paving slabbed street the little shopping trio
stood, Granddad with his carrier bag full of dirty washing in his hand
was doing a 'Harry Worth' impersonation on the corner of the plate
glass window, to the delight of his granddaughter. By lifting one leg
and one arm up, with the aid of the reflection in the window he
appeared to be floating on air and why not?
Penny was busy talking to her 'admirer', Simon and couldn't see her
father's antics.
"I'm sorry about my father but&;#8230;" she tried to say to
him.
"No no it was our fault, someone should have remembered to remove the
security tag from his thermals. I do hope this little incident hasn't
spoilt your shopping trip?" he empathised.
"No it hasn't thank you, we've had a lovely day." Penny replied. "Oh
er&;#8230;and I do like Italian food if the offer is still open?"
"Of course it is. I would be honoured!" said Simon smiling. Penny just
glowed, she, just like her grandfather, was floating on air!

Copyright 2001. davyferguson