The Dangers Of Shopping (with me ...)

I went skating today.

Actually, I didn't really go skating.  I met Miss Mac as she had a free period at college and she wanted to go into town to buy Lady Windermere's Fan which she needs for English Literature.

We went to Waterstones to pick it up as she'd pre-ordered it and they had text her to say it was in.  The first thing I noticed when we entered the shop was the faint whiff of burning.  'It's ok' said the assistant, 'the lights just blew up in the stock room but I don't think there's any actual fire or anything ...'

Phew, for a minute there I was worried what with this being a BOOK shop an' all and books being prone to being flammable!

'I've come in to collect a book I ....'  Miss Mac paused looking blank and searching for the right word ...

'Ordered?' I said helpfully ...

'Yeah, that's it, I forgot what it was called' she said.

I'm so glad she chose English Lit as one of her A'levels ...

Anyway, after, Miss Mac said she was hungry and wanted to go to MacDonalds for something to eat until she remembered that a) she had apparently decided just that morning to cut out junk food and b) she had left the MacDonald vouchers that were pushed through our door at home and she didn't want to pay full price when she could have got a Big Mac and fries for £1:99 so we went to KFC instead.

As soon as I walked through the door I realised they had had a refit since my last visit.  Everything looked great in cool shaded of grey, very clean, very shiny and VERY bloody slippery.

I skidded right up to the counter surprising both myself and the girl behind it with the speed that I traversed the 15ft or so between her and the door and hit it with a thud shortly followed by Miss Mac who cannoned into the back of me.

Seriously, they spend god knows how much doing a place up and it doesn't cross their minds to check that the flooring doesn't turn into an ice rink when it gets wet???

I held onto Miss Mac's mega box as she pushed me from behind and we gracefully slid to a table.

Afterwards Miss Mac went back to college and I decided to indulge in a little retail therapy.

I'd come to the conclusion over the weekend that I don't own enough pairs of boots.  To be honest, I haven't actually counted HOW many pairs of boots I have right now (about 15 sounds right) but I DO know that I need another pair ...

I spent a little time looking round a couple of shoe shops not really finding anything that took my fancy and then wandered into Jones the Bootmakers  where I spotted a pair that only bear a passing resemblance to a couple of other pairs I own so they were practically unique!

As I sat down to try them on a couple of other girls came over and started discussing and trying on the shoes they had picked up.

'What do YOU think' asked one.

I looked over, considered carefully and gave my honest opinion ...

'Well,' I said, 'I'm not a HUGE fan of quilted boots with metal spikes but to be honest ANYTHING is better than those truly disgusting slip on pump things with a fake gold band around the toe - those things should just be banned and I'm begging you not to even CONSIDER buying them - just put them back and we'll say no more about it!'

'Actually' she said - 'THOSE are my OWN shoes and I'd just taken them off to try these on AND I WASN'T EVEN TALKING TO YOU I WAS TALKING TO MY FRIEND!!!!'