Everything You Need From A Store

Yesterday I took a trip down memory lane as my mother asked me to get some groceries and pick up a prescription for her at a small shopping mall near my old high school. This I duly did, looking forward to visiting the old haunt and seeing what, if anything, had changed. 

My old school has long been demolished, rebuilt and renamed and I must say looks very shiny and new and well designed. The modern architecture looks good on it; a step or three up on the communist bloc design of my yesteryouth. I could almost forgive them for erasing part of my life from reality. Almost. But the school lives on in my memory and dreams: its crystal maze-esque one-way system of mouse shoulder-width corridors and stairwells; its ground floor of 'not quite inside not quite outside' pillar-strewn mental space with sharp concrete corners everywhere; its alphabetised Houses of destiny (I was in F) sticking out at right angles towards grass, greenness and glen; its science block plonked on almost as an afterthought; and its playground a prison exercise yard in the centre. My God. Memories gush forth like struck oil. But they're all by the by as I didn't even stop to take a photo of the new place (to which I have no attachment, positive, negative or otherwise except it looks nice and probably smells nice too).

Today I want to talk about the supermarket.

When I was a pre-schooler my mother used to trail me round Safeway on a weekly basis for the groceries. This would have been the late 70s. I clearly remember her allowing me to open 'as yet unpaid for' packets of goodies and then settling up the spent wrappers at the till on the way out. Imagine doing this nowadays. I have absolutely no idea how I am not crippled by debt by this unintended received philosophy even now. Perhaps it was my Dad's mindset that it was better to save up and buy stuff rather than put everything on credit cards which counteracted this. Or maybe I was affected in other ways, as I was too young to understand the economics of such a thing, just the joy of my mum letting me do something slightly naughty and delicious with no concern for the consequences. Perhaps I've been seeking out slightly naughty and delicious things ever since. Who doesn't?

One day, when I was slightly older, we were in the afore-mentioned Safeway and we'd become separated as I went off to find a packet of sweets. Having selected a tasty option I attempted to return to my mother but couldn't find her anywhere. After a while of carrying the sweet packet in my hand, without thinking I stuck them in my pocket while continuing my search. By the time I found her I had had this sudden heart-thumping and adrenalin-fueled epiphany: I'd just pocketed a packet of sweets in a supermarket and no-one had noticed. I looked around to see if I'd been spotted, but no. All I had to do was walk out with my mum, act natural, and get away with them scot-free! My God! My first taste of the thrills of breaking the law. As we approached the till my mouth became dry. The candy seemed to bulge in my trouser pockets. I couldn't resist staring guiltily at the adults. The cashier smiled at me. I gulped back at her. Act natural! I told myself. NATURAL GODDAMNIT!*

When we got home I scoffed the lot guiltily behind the garage. It never occurred to me until just now that if I'd simply put them in the shopping trolley mum would have bought them for me without batting a 70's mascara'd eyelid. Or even let me eat them and pay for the empty wrapper at the till. But where would the fun be in that? And so began my life of crime.

Another memory I have is of a friend and me going down the glen and collecting two big bin bags of empty beer and soft drink cans, testing them with magnets to see if they were aluminium, and then bringing them to this supermarket carpark where a scrap guy gave us a few quid for them. Happy days.

Back to the present. I pull my Leaf into the carpark to happily discover that Tesco, being the cheap bastards we love them for, haven't even properly painted over the remains of the old Safeway sign. This more than made up for the erasure of my high school from the annals of history. I feel myself return to solidity, like Marty McFly when his parents finally kiss at the end of Back To The Future. Although upon entry to the supermarket I find it claustrophobically small compared to the planet-sized Asdas and Morrisons to which we are now used. How could I have gotten lost from my own mother in such a tiny grocery store back in the day? You can almost see every part of the shop from a standing position near the door. While gathering the requested shopping - fruit, corned beef and decaf cappucino pouches - I can't help chancing eye contact with everyone I meet, perhaps to see if I know them, they me, or anyone has any knowledge of my past transgressions 40 years prior.

Nearby is the fish and chip shop I'd occasionally escape to from high school and patronise (hah, call yourself a chippie?) for a deep fried pizza at lunchtime. Since you ask, I rarely truanted from school; I only have one vague memory of jumping out a ground floor window and strolling off without a care over the grass, but this is so fuzzy it could well have been a dream.

The whole place seems a little run down. The only establishment doing well is the pub - the Bonnie Prince Charlie - enjoying a recent lick of paint and flowers in hanging baskets. One place is a new and worthwhile addition to the square: a Men's Shed, a sign of the times perhaps, or at least something that wouldn't have existed 40 years ago. Looks like a solid place. Might pop in one of these days. 

It being a Sunday though, the pharmacy is, perhaps predictably, closed, rendering the whole trip ultimately pointless. I could have got the shopping at the new LIDL down the road.

*Slightly dramatised for the purposes of artistic licence.

2020 Hindsight

Well, it's that time of year again, when we look back at what we've achieved and forward to what we want but fail to change. Casting my gaze around my office I see barely-glanced-at A4 print outs with things like:

Goals for 2019

Write a book (Aa Apple) - failed, but I've begun compiling my 2000-2020 compilation of short stories called Hidden In The Old Stone Wall, which will hopefully be ready early 2020

Coffee Cup Killer – failed, but I've written a few more chapters and figured out a few more in my head, plus have some checked at West Lothian Writers with some great feedback

Don't Give Up – success! I have not given up.

Plant bushes in front garden – failed. But I have planted 20 tree seeds in pots in the green house, Hopefully they sprout in the spring

Publish another short story - failed. But Thick as Thieves is out now published in a compilation called Knucklehead Noir by Coffin Hop Press.

I also, as if that wasn't enough, can see another A4 print out right next to it that says:

2019 New Year's Resolutions

Good Hour Every Day : Music, Language, Write – failed

Speak Japanese every even day – failed

Exercise 3 times a week – failed

No alcohol – failed

Work 9 hour days – 4-4-1 – failed

Tai chi every morning – failed, but did do it a lot of mornings

Go to bed at 10:30pm - failed

Wake up at 7am – failed

Seven fruit and veg a day – failed

Spend less money – failed

More family time – failed

More garden time – failed

Save money – failed

One coffee max – failed

More water – failed

Be more patient – failed

Cook more – failed

Write one letter a week – failed

Reduce plastic waste – I think we actually may have succeeded with this one with our use of ecobricks to insulate the loft rafters. So much so that my wife was getting sick of ecobricks scattered around the house and stopped buying plastic bottles of orange juice.

Walk more – failed

More board games – failed, although we did play Risk with a few of the local kids which seemed to go quite well. "World domination, kids! It's what it's all about!"

I only looked at and read these sheets of paper twice. Once when I put them up at the end of 2018, and again just now. So I can safely say that didn't work. 

Perhaps I was unrealistic in my goals. Just too many. My most successful year of fulfilling New Year's Resolutions I think was a couple of years ago when I only had one:

Don't be an Asshole

which was later downgraded to :

Try not to be an Asshole

So what then can we take away from this? It's better to have a goal and risk it unmet, than to have no goal and achieve nothing. Then again it's quite nice and less stressful to achieve goals that one had not really set out on achieving. But too many targets and you miss them all. As I believe it was Confucius who once said 

“The dog that chases two rabbits catches neither.”

So with this in mind then, let's try to gather a list of NYRs that are both achievable and easy to remember. 

I think I'm going to split these up into three parts: Vows, Goals and Regimen. (Already sounding too much)

2020 Vows, Goals & Regimen

Vows

I vow not to fly in 2020

I vow to drive as little as possible and less than last year

I vow to expand my vegetable garden and grow more in it

Goals

To complete Hidden In The Old Stone Wall

To either find an agent and/or publisher for or self publish Hidden In The Old Stone Wall

To complete The Coffee Cup Killer

Regimen

Early to bed, early to rise

Write 250 words every day

Exercise at least once a week

One thing I realised in 2019 is that it's almost as hard for me to go to bed early as it is to get up early, and that these things are two sides of the same coin. It actually takes effort to go to bed. It's taken me 44 years to get my head round this (and I still haven't). You'd think it would be easy to climb into a nice warm snug area and read a good book until you get sleepy, by which point you're already in prime position to nod off. 

But no. I have to play Firefight on Halo OTSD until 3am. Then hate myself and climb the stairs of shame, brush the hairy teeth of tardiness, pull off my clothes of disorganisation, drop my underwear into the laundry basket of humiliation, climb into a freezing cold, draughty bed of despair, read for a few uncomfortable moments and then extinguish the light of disgust and lie there with feet of ice seeing flashbacks of popping grunts and failing to knock out big blue hunters by elbowing them on their armour.

But, happily, some goals I completed in 2019 by accident are:

The planting of 20 native British tree seeds with my son

The first draft compilation of 'Hidden in the Old Stone Wall'

The setting up and running of 6 Saltire Open Mic Nights with Steven Dakers

Successfully (I think) held the 2019 Scottish Short Film Festival in July

Had my iPhone stolen and reverted back to Nokia, thereby healing repetitive strain injury in right wrist

Began a petition and Facebook page to try to save Carmondean Library

Wrote the song Halloween Blues and covered I'm Yours, Friday I'm in Love and El Condor Pasa

Popped my busking cherry
Popped my stand up cherry

Got a dangerous metal bench moved from the local playground

Wrote a nice email to Hannah Bardell MP about the wildfires in Australia

That's about it

In my younger days I used to buy a day-to-a-page diary from John Menzies and try my best to fill it in over the course of the year (I still have these). Then on New Year's Eve I'd sit down and enjoy reading through it all again and ponder life's imponderables. But alas I don't do that any more. Mostly because I always felt guilty about not being able to keep up with my diary writing and wasting all that paper, so instead I switched to jotting in undated notebooks whenever the notion took me. Just found them and there's a few pages from 2019 so I'll take a wee stroll down memory lane and see if there's owt worth sharing.

Sunday 9th March

Ye gadzooks! Another day in the valley and I only have T minus three minutes to figure out what's wrong with my life!

• No motivation,

There! That was easy!

Monday 11th March

I have nothing to say. Everything I have to say has been said before by better minds than I. Half the stuff I say I regret, and the other half is divided into thirds - funny stuff, informative stuff, and stuff people don't want to listen to.

    But on the whole most of the stuff I say is better left unsaid. Even the funny stuff I say is not wanted or lends anything worthwhile to the debate.

   So what is worth saying?

   Nobody wants to hear the truth, and nobody wants to hear lies. What does that leave?

   Silence.

Saturday 13th April

Went to the library and my son picked up two books at random to appease me - one about space and the other called Business Finance for Kids.

In the post office he bought some super sour candy called 'Hazardous Waste' which I tried too and it almost tore my mouth apart.

Wednesday 1st May

Struggled to leave my bed at 7:45am this morning. Decided to not decide whether to have a day off today.

Wednesday 22nd May

Today my son said his teacher humiliated him for not knowing his fractions or how to simplify 63/77ths. He was quite upset about it and said he couldn't remember exactly what she'd said because he'd tried to block it from his mind. I just tried to help him practise some fractions and then talk him through his emotions, relating to him a bit how primary school teachers traumatised me when I was a kid. Knocking my head together with Neil Law's and staring at me with excess mascara. I still feel nervous even now when going into the primary school to pick him up

   Anyway, he seemed to cheer up a bit after that.

   Personally I have lost faith in the present Scottish education system. Hardly any homework, days off galore, free time on Fridays which are half days anyway. What the fuck? No wonder he doesn't know his fractions.

Wednesday 6th June

So why the hell am I starting up an Open Mic Night?

Saturday 15th June

Played chess against the computer while listening to Rage Against The Machine.

Thursday 10th October

My son came home and lit up the household with his laughter and songs as usual.

Saturday 26th October

Okay. In an effort to clear my mind of the scum layer of thoughts and crabbit emotions encrusting the upper regions of my psyche, I am now endeavouring to write some diary here in my own dining room in my own house in the peace and quiet of my own family's absence.

Monday 4th November

This is the only thing I know for sure. The date. Nothing else is certain. Nothing else is written.

There. That was fun.

But no matter your successes or failures of 2019, or your goals, resolutions and hopes for 2020, I wish you all peace, harmony and happiness for the coming year. See you on the other side :)