The Seventh Teaching
I’m very sorry to all my fellow cynics out there but I now believe in love. Don’t worry I’ve not lost my mind completely and fallen in love. That’d be stupid!? But I know believe people (not me, but some people) do fall in love. A shocking revelation I know.
So, you maybe wondering, if this complete change in thought wasn’t brought about by a man, what was it triggered by? And the answer is simple and very random. Argos. Yes then catalogue shop which has been my place of employment for the last 6 months.
The unique thing about working in a shop in Oldham is the customers feel the need to tell you their life story. I say unique because I’m fairly sure that this doesn’t happen anywhere else. I’ve travelled the country a fair bit now and I’ve never been to a town where people talk to strangers like they do in Oldham. If I wasn’t from there I’d probably be quite scared. I hadn’t been working at Argos long before a man felt the need to tell me all about the difficulties he has when showering because he only has one leg. And then you get the woman who phoned the store and told me all about her next door neighbour’s car crash. Basically, people like to tell you stuff.
One day I was working in the jewellery department when an old woman came in wanting to look at men’s gold bracelets. She was there for a while looking at various different ones before she settled on one for £50. “I think this one’ll do,” she said, “you see, it’s for my husband – he needs an identity bracelet ever since he lost his mind.” And with that she left. A couple of weeks later I was stood around not doing much when an old man approached me and asked if I’d help him buy a waterproof mattress protector for a double bed because he didn’t usually come shopping but his wife was in hospital and he needed to get the sheet on her bed before she got home.
It makes me think they must really love their husband/wife to stay with them and look after them after they’ve lost the use of their mind or bladder. It kind of makes me wish that when I’m old, mad, incontinent and my body’s falling to pieces there’ll be someone there to go shopping for me and worry about me. I’d hate to have to buy my own waterproof sheet.