Yesterday I went shopping in Kingston THEN Staines! First up in the first town, I went to the nearby CD shop. Well, I thought I walked into a shop, but for some reason no one was there. It looked like less of a retail outlet and more of a storage room. Oh no! Was the business closed or something? I finally found a staff member and he explained that actually it was a storage room and the real shop was on the left. Not exactly embarrassing for me, the entrance just needed to be clearer. However, as I’m capable of walking into women’s toilets by mistake, maybe it didn’t need to be clearer for most people. And easy to follow directions right? Well, I turned right instead of left. In my defence however, left or right is different depending on if you’re facing forwards or backwards. It’s like with trains when they say ‘leave the carriage on your right’. Well what’s that mean? How do you think I feel when it seems many toddlers are more knowledgable than me? The difference between left and right is one of the very first things people get taught. Sometimes the train announcer says ‘face right in the direction of travel’, though. THANK YOU! THAT’S clear.
Anyway, when I was in the actual shop, I thought I picked up 5 CDs. Then when I bought them and the shopkeeper handed them back to me, I only received four. -_- Yep, it was time to accuse someone else of turning against me passive aggressively. I didn’t say to the member of staff what I thought was going on, but it probably was clear. Oh yes, and remember how I said I got annoyed at cooks for seemingly trying to spoil my food with too much salt two times? I’ve done it again. So yeah, I soon bought another CD, and when I had the five, I noticed one band was called ‘Milk Teeth’, the other was called ‘American Smile, British Teeth’. Not hearing of the vast majority of the albums on offer in the store, I thought I bought my 5 CDs at random without much thought. I guess my subconscious was drawn to them. I do have a teeth fixation, that’s clear. I just want pearly whites. But I guess gold is a precious material, too.
The next place I went to was a toy shop. I was told my 5 year old niece loves puzzles, but there weren’t too many puzzles on offer. Would she be into 1920s towns, for example? Maybe. I suppose it’s possible for someone of that age to be interested in history, but in the end I thought a nice snowy scene was the best product on offer. Let’s hope she can handle 500 pieces. Pretty epic. I soon saw a cuddly toy my youngest niece should appreciate, so I picked that up. Then another customer told me it was one of his newly purchased possessions. Whoops. I didn’t grab it out of his hand, don’t worry, the guy left the item on a shelf or whatever and I grabbed it that way. I was told the same cuddly and snug plaything was available in an other part of the store, so I went there and picked one up from a basket and out of a choice of many. Surely no one bought all of those at once and left them hanging around? They had to be on sale. I was right.
I tried to buy the gift, but was told it had no barcode so I had to get another. The second gift I took also had no barcode. It seems I don’t know what barcodes are, hence the confusion. Not to worry, the person at the checkout sorted things out for me, and the toy was finally mine. Not long after leaving the shop, badly played Christmas music was heard. I have to be honest, bits of it sounded atonal. That was either by mistake, or the musicians were trying to be experimental. If the latter they were successful right? No, they were being unprofessional because everyone hates atonal music. There may be some theory to such music, but to 99.99% of the population, it sounds plain wrong. Frightening, even. A little disturbing. Djembe music was also heard, but thankfully it’s not possible for drumming to be atonal. I don’t know what it has to do with Christmas, though.
I walked into a health and beauty shop where I intended to buy my sister in law a girly present. There were a range of shampoos on offer, but does she have dull hair, dry hair, crazy hair etc.? I have no idea. Let’s not take a chance and buy and specialist shampoo, then. Everyone has bodies though, so in the end I bought body wash. Next up, my brother previously told me he wanted a computer game for Christmas. I couldn’t find the game shop, it seemed to have closed down! I walked across the town a good three times in search for it in case it popped up somehow, but I had no luck. Not to worry, I’m sure there’s a game shop in Staines. Unless that closed down too… :S Feeling a mixture of festivity and uncertainty, I walked back to the station and had to wait 10 minutes for the train home. Not too bad!
In the Staines car park, I had trouble working the ticket machine. Not my finest moment, but on the plus side I’ve never seen a toddler working such machines, so my self esteem wasn’t too badly hurt. Not like it was before. 7 year olds probably could probably get themselves a ticket without much difficulty, though. I got annoyed and told someone behind me the ticket thingy wasn’t working. Then I realised I didn’t enter my debit card’s PIN number in the device, I did that, and I got my ticket. I walked to where the game shop used to be at least a few times, and that place didn’t pop up either. Damn. I guess I’d have to order the game off Amazon. No biggie, but a bit annoying. Next up, I wanted to get me some shoes as I’d worn my old ones out at the gym. In the store, I thought I saw someone with ‘Nuke War’ written on his back. Oh no. However, on closer inspection it said ‘Nike Air’. Phew. It was particularly alarming, as I could see the person wearing a shirt with the mistaken writing on.
I bought the cheapest shoes on offer, which coincidentally were the same shoes I bought a year or so ago. My thinking was no one ever looks at my feet, so what’s it matter? No, people usually look at my weird eyes. Next up was the card shop. I kind of wanted to get things over with there as cards are the most boring gifts to buy, but the store had cards for brothers, sisters, sisters in laws, etc. Can’t they have generic Christmas cards that apply to everyone? It was annoying as it slowed the whole process down. I finally found a card for sister in laws, but then I realised it was for sister in laws AND brother in laws at the same time! I don’t have a brother in law, so the card didn’t work. I was about to give up hope and just buy the damn card, but I did eventually find a card just for ‘legal’ sisters. I then bought two CDs, both best of albums. I looked at the track listings and they got my nod of approval, so that was another couple of gifts sorted. Then came the real highlight of the day: A milkshake and a muffin! Absolutely incredible.
Not long after going home, I went to the gym where I could try out my new shoes. ‘But they’re for Christmas!’ Well not really, because I bought them for myself and as explained, I bought the same shoes before. They were more a renewal than a gift. Like topping up a mobile phone. Is THAT a present? Surely not. If you’re really that sociable where you love spending excess amounts of money on talking to others, why not just meet up with people in person? That’s what Christmas is for! The shoes seemed a bit big for me. I hadn’t dropped a size in the last year, had I? Can that happen if you wear shoes that are too small over a long period? Ah, I just had to tie the shoelaces up tighter. Phew. After the gym I went to the petrol station to buy my dad some wine. I noticed that after I drank a fair amount of alcohol in the Christmas party, bits of my face turned a bit brown for a while, so I thought I’d give up alcohol and see what happens. As I didn’t want any of the wine for myself, it did mean I could save money and buy cheap booze. By that I mean the quality doesn’t really matter, does it? And on that Christmasy note, bye!