Doom of the Unknown Shopper Part 2

A man buying groceries avoids neighbours and accidently buys sanitary products

PART 2

You see, I’m modern so I know that men can buy women’s…stuff, and of course the 21^st century shop assistant just thinks that sanitary wear is bought by anyone regardless of gender and age, even though it is only females who use them, I assume. But seeing me stare for too long at sanny pads and the like whilst peering over shelves, then saunter down an aisle, peer round it then scuttle back to the feminine hygiene section, must have roused suspicion. Something along the lines of “Perv Alert”. Initially I was trying to avoid Nat Bradstone who, as head of the parish council, is Simon’s nemesis. Simon, who gets bored every so often if he hasn’t had a dust-up with a neighbour or business rival, knowingly bought a house in a conservation area three years ago, then had it artfully tarted up with a wagon wheel gate and American-style stoop along the house front. Confronted by a Bradstone-fronted council, Simon subsequently argued forcefully and repeatedly that he had ‘conserved’ the house in the conservation area because it was previously in the early stages of dereliction.

So why should seeing Bradstone be a problem to me? Because he knows I am Simon’s brother-in-law, but so what? Well, he knows the link and he might assume I’m clued up on the saga and probably on Simon’s side, even though it’s an issue which is none of my business and which I don’t suppose he cares if I’m involved or not. But if I’d seen him and acknowledged him and started to make pointless chit-chat, I’d probably have said something mental in reference to StoopWheelGate. I’d have probably thought about the wagon wheel, linked it to the word “we’ll”, then probably have needlessly said something like “oh we’ll have to see then…” with far too much emphasis on “we’ll”. I’d then have thought Bradstone would think I’m making some hint about it or just blatantly taking the pee. So obviously, you see, Bradstone avoidance was essential.

In turning round with what I imagined to be Travolta-esque / Strictly precision and style, I spotted our neighbour Barbara who I like but didn’t feel inclined to make small talk with either. Her husband Bob had just delivered some plums off his overladen plum tree round to ours earlier in the week because she thought my mum-in-law would like to make jam. However the same Bob had also recently witnessed me furiously patting my pockets whilst out on a dog walk, because I’d forgotten the t**d bags, and so left a deposit on the verge alongside the pavement. So these issues would have haunted any conversation and, if I’d have started talking to Barbara I’d have been preoccupied with the innuendo opportunities of the word ‘plums’. I wouldn’t have listened to a thing she would’ve said, amid the effort of not making a cheap joke about plums which, though she was nice, Barbara would not have appreciated at all. At some point in life she’d had a major humour bypass op. I would probably have smirked, and the thing is, I know her brother Philip died recently. If she’d talked about Philip, I’d have been supressing laughter about plums, ripe plums, bruised plums, a sackful of plums, purple plums, look-at-the-size-of-them-plums and so on. She didn’t see me so I lurched round the aisle to tampons, sidled back up the aisle to ensure that Bradstone wasn’t anywhere near yet, then returned to the sanctuary of feminine hygiene where I felt safe. It was a bold shop assistant who enquired if I needed help choosing tampons, so hats off to her. I had to buy something. I attempted to look like I was selecting carefully. I got panty liners.

“Yes, they’re for my daughter.”

Why did I say “…daughter”? Because as the assistant was approaching me I thought about a possible answer in case I was asked. Then I was asked, then I panicked a bit. I thought ‘wife’ would be ridiculous because it would seem daft that a middle-aged woman would send her husband out to buy her tampons, except it wouldn’t to a 21^st century shop assistant. Obviously ‘sister’, ‘auntie’, ‘cousin’ or ‘mum’ were right off the scale, so I ended up dragging my girl-child into my nonsense, not that she’d know or the assistant would care. The thing was, as the conversation proceeded I dug myself a Somme-sized trench, becoming convinced that I actually was buying some panty liners for a genuine reason. I envisaged the whole scenario and thoughts about what I was supposed to buy and why I was buying them, and it became perfectly real as I tried to justify my prolonged stay in Tampon Central. I mean, credit to me. Unprompted I managed to squeeze into my ‘tete de merde’ a fictional sanitary wear shopping trip and actually make it vaguely credible, having started a supermarket trip to buy cereal, milk, courgettes and some scouring pads, and the inevitable two-for-one crisps offer, by thinking about The Unknown Soldier followed by some serious acquaintance dodging amongst the supermarket shelves. If this isn’t creative genius, I’m a butternut squash.