As good as a lamp post

I don’t think I managed to sell anything at work today but I did manage to get lipstick on my skirt. It’s easy when you know how.

I think I’ll just call into this shop I’m passing and see if there is anything pretty that I simply have to buy, as it’s on my way home and all.

What am I thinking? I hate shopping. I’d rather stick pins in my eyes. Maybe I’m having one of those moments, when your mind has gone blank after a long day, and is not functioning on any level whatsoever.

I wander aimlessly round the store. I even pick up things I would never wear. Somehow, I manage to get a grip and propel myself to the automatic doors. See, it’s all so effortless you don’t even have to push anything; you can just drift around in a browsing haze of inattention, and drift right back out again, like shopping plankton.

It’s a huge relief to be back in the car park and I am congratulating myself on my self control when I see a small boy running ahead of me. He isn’t running like little boys usually do; all excitement, uncontrolled limbs and speed over efficiency; he’s really chunky, like a grown man, only in miniature.

My idle curiosity is awakened by his chunkiness and his stocky waddle and, just as I think he would look right at home on a farm, helping his dad heave bales of hay, or shoving pigs around the yard, he dodges between two cars: up comes one shoulder, then the other, and he’s rummaging round with his trousers. Oh, I say. He’s about to wee on the car wheel. Just like a dog. I scuttle off to my car feeling like I’ve been caught out perving at him as he grapples with his willy. They can't have indoor loos where he comes from. Funny little man.

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