Christmas Shopping
I took my Moleskine Notebook out Christmas Shopping today. I am perhaps a little worried that I am referring to it as you might a character in a story, but perhaps this is the correct method. Perhaps it should be regarded as you might a bard, riding a donkey and documenting your adventures. Perhaps on the other hand I am going mad. Anyway – there it is.
What follows within block quotes is a direct transcript of what I wrote in the notebook at various times during the day. If I further comment, it will be italicized.
2nd December 2006 – (Written while on Train to Reading to start Christmas Shopping).
Given Time X, Tasks Y, and Unknown Happenings Z, no matter how large X is, Y and Z will meet or exceed it.
Why, when preparing to leave the house this morning, did my stomach decide it wanted to empty it's contents? Does it have it's own brain? “Ah, I have a few spare minutes – I know – time for a good clear out. I'll get ride of those jalapeno peppers he ate a couple of days ago.”
I swear, I always find myself rushing to catch the train. Perhaps I try to do too much all the time? This can be corroborated this morning by my last minute decision to take my MP3 player with me on the train, and fill it with suitable music to while away the journey. You would not believe the temper I levelled at the computer after plugging the MP3 player in, and Photoshop decided it wanted to show me what photos might be on it... all the while, the clock was ticking..
Looking around the train carriage, there is a business man in a white shirt talking to a lady with long flowing patterned clothes. She looks like she might be a raving hippy in private. (I should know, I live with one.).
Where is the man who sells tickets?
There follows the entirity of my Christmas Shopping adventure in Reading, where I bought most of W's presents, and a couple for our respective parents. A couple of visits to online lingerie, book, movie and gadget shops should just about clear up my shopping for the year.
The journal continues within Reading railway station...
2nd December 2006, 1:05pm
I find myself sat in the “West Country Pasty Shop” cafe in Reading station.
Reading (pronounced “Redding”) is nuts. I am feeling an almost uncontrollable urge to push old people out of my way. It's the old women – they have no concept that there might be people behind them when they single-handedly block an entire isle of a shop. Younger women seem to have no problem with them – they just blindly barge into them, knock them flying, and carry on with a “sorry” that they don't mean, and have forgotten within two paces.
I cannot do that. I am from the “whoops-a-daisys” school of “worry about everybody else”, and “apologise for breathing” class of slightly old fashioned Englishman. I wait. I am patient. I secretly want to set fire to people.
I wonder how W is getting on at her School Bazaar? (She spent the day unsuccessfully trying to sell various socks, slippers and scarves that she has been knitting for charity – she will have a webpage up soon that I will tell you all about).
An Algerian man just caused a scene at the counter of the cafe after trying to barter the price down on the goods he bought. He looked shifty from the start – beckoning the assistant over to the far end of the counter for a quiet conversation. That has to be some kind of psychology going on. Not only has he seperated her from the rest of the staff, he has got her doing what he wanted before even speaking.
Charge him f*cking double.
What followed – after I gave my table up to a rather lovely young woman who might have sat down with me anyway (as the best choice in a selection of tables with various odd looking people sat at them) – was a train journey home that I could really have done without.
I spent half of it with a 4 year old girl excitedly shaking a bottle of fizzy drink next to me, and her mother doing absolutely nothing about it. I'm not quite sure how I stopped myself telling her mother “If that drink goes on these presents, I'll pin you to this f*cking chair, and force you to pay for everything”.
If only people knew how angry I get sometimes. Of course, I sat there and smiled at the little girl. It wasn't her fault that her Mum was more interested in talking to her trashy friends on her mobile phone than taking any interest in her wonderful little girl, who was desperately trying to get her Mum's attention – even if it was by misbehaving.
I survived the day, which is the main thing. The world kept turning, and I am a little closer to being “ready” for Christmas. It is unheard of that I have bought presents this early. That doesn't mean I won't be out on Christmas eve, desperately trying to find W some silly present or other though.
It's strange – W ambushed me earlier on “what I want for Christmas”. She asked “okay – while you were out shopping today, what did you see that you thought 'I'd love one of those'”. I thought. I thought some more. Finally, I said “it's weird – I don't think like that. I wander around the shops thinking 'oh – so-and-so would love that' – never 'I would love that'”. Says a lot about me really...
(If you are wondering, the photo is the Salvation Army band that were playing in the street as I wandered by).