The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Coming up with unique or original titles for posts is really hard. I've taken today's title from the book I bought a copy of while queueing in HMV to buy in-ear headphones for my phone. The old Samsung ones (from before the great switch to Windows Phone) died while out shopping for a suit, so I walked into HMV and picked up a pairof “Skullcandy” headphones. They are rubbish, by the way.
There I was, stood waiting for a shop assistant to take any notice of me, when I fatefully glanced at the books lined up to grab the attention of bored people in queues. I've heard of “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” before, but have no idea what it's about, or even if it's any good. It was cheap. It was an impulse buy. I tend to buy all books on Kindle these days, but there's still something about having a paper book in your hands.
The real reason for being in town was to get a new suitwhich I did in double quick time. I walked into Marks and Spencers (huge department store), picked a pure wool suitthe most generic looking oneand tried a few blazers to get the chest size right. After another five minutes finding the right size trousers, picking a pair of shoes, and grabbing a bag of white shirts, I was already in the queue. I spent exactly 300 in about 20 minutesand the suit will most likely last me for the next 5 years, given how often I have to wear them.
I guess I should re-wind somewhat, and completely confuse you as a reader. I headed into town early todaySundayto get the suit. I got there early, and found myself walking through the shopping centre (or “mall” as the American readers might think of it) before any of the stores had opened. Starbucks had of course opened it's doors, and was full of shop staff, grabbing their regular orders. I quietly made my way with a cappuccino upstairs, and sat in a recently vacated couch, catching up with Twitter and Tumblr on my phone.
While sat fiddling with my phone, and sipping coffeea lady wandered up from downstairs that obviously wanted to also sit in the comfy chairs, but could find none that she could have all to herselfso rather than approach me and and sit across from me (which would have been fine), she sat on a wooden chair across the way. What is it with English people being so standoffish? As soon as I left she raced to take the couch.
From the moment I arrived home, my feet didn't really touch the ground. While my other half cooked rice (and had a melt-down about it) I washed up non-stop, and put loads of washing through the washing machine and dryer. After chopping peppers, cucumber and onions, we threw it all together, and set off for the middle school, to help out at the parents barbecue.
I say “help out” in loose terms. As any parent that becomes involved in helping at any school knows, the same old parents tend to volunteer for, and run EVERYTHING. If they didn't, nothing would ever happen, and the parents that just turn up and then wander home would think the school their children go to was shit. It's funny reallyso many of the school events are supposed to be “relaxed”, but if you look beyond the surface you see a few very stressed people who are doing everything to make sure everybody else has a good time.
In general, things tend to pass off seamlessly because somebody somewhere is busting their ass. They were there hours before you, and will be there long after you have gone home.
So. It's Sunday night. A couple of hours to relax in front of the TV before another week beginsexcept in our case the washing machine is going flat out, the dryer is going flat out, and most of the house is trashed because we were out all weekend. Again.