It was a bright summer’s day and so we decided to take ourselves off to the County Town for a ‘meandering mooch’. For those of you who do not know this concept (and I suspect that it will mainly be the men) let me explain it to you. There are two kinds of shoppers, and it has to be said that it generally splits on gender. There are those who have a list of items to purchase and they move directly and without distraction through the list and those who have only a vague idea of what they might want to be buying, if anything, but insist in visiting every nook and cranny for fear of missing a bargain. We will call the former shopper ‘The Exocet’ whilst the latter is ‘The Meandering Moocher’.
My personal instinct is that of ‘The Exocet’ – home in on my target, go in for the kill and get out with the minimum of collateral damage in the shape of unwanted purchases and mythical bargains.
On the other hand, my wife is definitely a moocher and today was one where I had agreed to cede to her approach rather than impose mine. On such occasions I set myself two personal objectives. The first is to maintain a broad smile on my face at all times. The second is to enjoy one of my main hobbies, that of people watching.
The smile is a valuable weapon in the locker of the reluctant meanderer. It has the benefit of tricking your brain into thinking that you are having a good time, thereby avoiding a descent into a well of despond. There can be a range of reactions from passers-by to my smiling face. With some, I can see their minds ticking over as they try to fathom out what I can possibly know that they don’t. With others, my friendly smiling face has a familiar look and they assume that I am smiling at them and so they will acknowledge it with a smile of their own or a cheery word in passing.
“You ‘at it’ too?” one offered to me darkly.
“Afraid so!” I respond, as if I fully understand what he is talking about, “it has to be done.” I share conspiratorially.
We nod knowingly to each other and move on our way.
Of course, the smile does have its risks attached to it, as happened today. Libby decided that she would try on a dress – an interesting design, being shorter at the front than the back. We disagreed over which colour would suit her best which was quite arrogant on my part as I am notorious for my lack of colour co-ordination. Anyway, having raised a doubt in her mind, I was now committed to watching and waiting while she tried on both versions of the same dress. Experience told me not to wander too far from the changing room as I would be required, at short notice, to agree with her decision about the two items.
To describe the facility as a changing ‘room’ is giving it more status than it deserved. In fact it was an alcove with two curtains stretched across it. Libby disappeared behind one curtain and I took a short meander of my own around the adjacent lingerie department as I continued my search for knowledge about the difference between the balcony bra, the under-wired, the push-up bra and the shelf bra. And what is the difference between a T-Shirt bra and, presumably, a Shirt bra?
None-the-wiser, I returned to my station outside of the changing cupboard, ensuring that my grin was fully deployed just in time to see a curtain being thrown open and a partially dressed lady, who I did not recognise, strode out looking from side to side for her consort. A man mountain, arms inked in aggressive patterns of flick knives interwoven with knuckle-dusters, came into view and looked from one to the other of us – his wife with her blouse unbuttoned and me with a smile that was morphing through a smirk and into a leer. The disgruntled spouse stepped threateningly towards me but fortunately at that moment Libby emerged from her lair in her new dress and the hiatus was broken as I rushed towards her enthusing about her look. I decided that I would pass on my true opinion on the way to the cash desk, or, indeed anywhere away from the Neanderthal whose wife, I’m pretty sure was wearing a balcony bra under her blouse.
Escaping back into the High Street, we headed towards our ‘favourite’ restaurant, McDonalds for a refreshing milk shake when my second recreational activity – people watching – came into play. Outside the golden arches eatery squatted a duffle-coated, hairy ‘free spirit’ with a rough cardboard sign which read “ex-service and homeless”. As we walked towards the entrance a customer emerged from the restaurant and handed over a basic burger and with a brief “there you go mate” he was off.
We agreed that it was heart-warming to see such an act of altruism as we passed through into the heaving counter area. We even considered adding an extra drink to our order so that we could continue this act of generosity, but decided not to. This proved to be the right decision because, on exiting Maccie D’s we noticed that our homeless ex-serviceman had departed, replacing the original sign with a card which read “gone to lunch”. What was even more baffling was that he had left behind the burger that had been given to him plus his cap which contained the ten, twenty and fifty pence pieces that had been donated by passing strangers throughout the morning. A strange couple of decisions to make for a homeless person.
We continued our perambulations around the shopping precinct and some hours later (seriously –hours later!) we returned to outside McDonalds just in time to see our old soldier pulling yet another placard from his pack, this time reading “Back in 10 Minutes” and, leaving behind his uneaten burger and his cap full of booty, he shuffled off away from the High Street.
My curiosity now had the better of me and so, sending my wife off into yet another shoe shop, I decided to follow my vagrant friend. Even with my slow walking pace, he was easy to follow, given his slouched shoulders and scuffling gait. However, after a hundred yards strange things started to happen. Firstly, my quarry appeared to be getting taller and secondly, with this transformation his shuffle was turned into a stride and the pace quickened into something like a military yomp. I was now struggling to keep pace with him but determination had fired my curiosity and I would not be left behind.
As I strode out my mind was whirring into gear trying to second guess what was going on.
Was this man a drug dealer, rushing to his next deal?
Or, maybe, an undercover drugs cop who had just received a tip off that he was chasing down?
Or perhaps he just needed the loo – and fast!
Rounding a corner the truth finally dawned on me. The ‘squaddie’ had walked up to a machine, inserted a credit card and, having punched in his information, he waited whilst the machine churned and spewed out a ticket which he withdrew from the opening and, walking over to his Bentley Continental Convertible, he popped the lock and slipped the parking ticket onto the dashboard of his sumptuous car.
I followed, open mouthed, as this imposter returned to his pitch. The closer he came to the High Street, so the chameleon changed his deportment, shoulders stooping and legs stiffening into his trademark shuffle. His head, a moment ago held high and proud, was now bowed in subservience and submission as he went back to work – conning the public out of their hard earned cash out of misplaced sympathy and gratitude for service to his country.
Affronted by this man’s deceit (but not so affronted that I wanted to challenge him face-to-face) I sidled past the conman and muttered,
“Don’t forget your burger, mate! Wouldn’t want to put crumbs in the Bentley, would you?”
My point made, I moved back into the High Street and found myself following a young lad, suited and booted and ready for work. I assessed him to be some kind of civil servant, or maybe an aspiring local government official.
A lad of similar age, wearing a tatty and grubby grey tracksuit, recognised my ‘office worker’ and rushed over to him.
“Alright, John, haven’t seen you for a while!”
The lads greeted each other with the trendy flying arm-wrestling grip and topped that off with a gentle chest bump.
“Alright, Che? What you doing?”
“Just wasting time before I go to the dole office for another review. F-ing waste of time. Still working for the Council?”
I patted myself on the back for my perception as I strode past the pair but continued to listen to their Estuary accents with Rasta lilts which merged into one voice.
“Haven’t seen you down the club lately.”
“No, had a bit of aggro so I haven’t been out much.”
“What aggro?”
“Beat up this tosser from London, didn’t I? He was getting handy with my mate’s bitch but when the bill came both him and his bird had it on their toes, didn’t they? I think she was 14 or something.”
“Wanker! So what happened?”
“Got an ASBO, or whatever they call it now. Still I’ve never had a tag before so I can tick that one off.”
“An ankle tag – you got it on now?”
“’Course”
“Let’s have a butchers, then”
If he hadn’t asked, I would have because I haven’t seen an ankle tag either. Turning around I watched as John lifted the trouser leg of his suit and proudly showed off his new jewellery.
Not for the first time in my life I had a ‘books and covers’ moment