Xmas Shopping
By bib
- 348 reads
I thought I was having a religious experience this morning. Then I
realised I was standing too close to the radiator. The heat haze was
blurring my vision, and the scorching temperature made my legs feel
odd.
I was similarly baked in the afternoon, this time from a more
appropriately divine direction. But alas, no epiphany. I'd passed
through not the pearly gates of heaven but the hallowed portal of a
large department store, whose owners apparently felt it necessary to
blast the tops of their customer's heads with hot air as they entered.
Perhaps it was to sanitize the more unsavoury characters who came in to
use the loos rather than actually purchase anything. Or maybe to
heat-treat, like milk, us proper customers for a longer life, hence
more time to spend browsing their endless shelves.
As I stood on the lip of the large entrance mat, I bowed to read the
words woven therein; a grandiose script traced out the stores name, the
year it opened and an seemingly harmless statement of intent that
somehow managed to convey that the store couldn't wait to separate you
and your money in any number of interesting and convenient ways without
you actually noticing. I realised that the gates I'd stepped through
were most definitely not those of heaven but of it's more southerly
counterpart. Though I don't remember any Hieronymous Bosch paintings
depicting tinsel, large plastic pine trees or snowmen.
I took a deep breath in the manner of Hilary's no doubt generous
pre-Everest inhalation (I'm sure mountaineers must take a deep breath
before embarking on a arduous climb) and dived into the vast shoal of
bargain hungry predators commonly known as "Christmas shoppers"
(Festivus Consumerus Voracious to those of a zoological leaning)
I shan't describe the next hour or two. The wounds are still raw and
the trauma too fresh in my mind to recount the details without fresh
waves of anxiety assailing me.
After the battle I found myself, once more, on the great entrance mat
where my odyssey had begun. In my hands I gripped the straining handles
of several swollen carrier bags, filled with (I hoped) everything I had
intended to buy. On further inspection I found that I had, in fact,
managed to obtain all the items on my list and also ? dozen random
objects that I must have either stolen or been coerced into buying
after an impromptu and wholly undetected session of in-store
hypnosis.
Next year I intend to abstain from the whole nasty business and do my
Christmas shopping entirely online. No queues, no lifting (other than
that of coffee cup to lips) and everything I buy is delivered to my
door by smiling van drivers who whistle as they walk up my path.
Though in reality my credit card details will be emailed to a teenage
boy in Russia with a talent for computer hacking and a penchant for
fine art, and I'll receive only a third of the goods I ordered.
Twice.
? Graham Woods 2001
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