Nothing For Money

Yesterday, I had what may have been my least successful shopping trip ever. I am, I will readily accept, not terribly good at shopping: I cannot shop like a bargain hunter because it would involve too much patience, nor like a Bargain Hunter because it would involve an interest in antiques, nor like the stereotypical lover of shopping because it would involve a sex change and emigration to New York (and also because, even if I did both these things, I would not be allowed in the category by virtue of having spent well over a year believing that the phrase "a pair of Jimmy Choos" was rhyming slang.)

The trip began quite well. I quickly found the book I was looking for and paid up, although I did only spend nine pounds of my ten-pound book token, leaving me with a largely useless one-pound book token. Still, it was surely better than no book token, so I moved on with a spring in my step.

There was little trouble when I attempted to buy stationery. I had been putting up with a three-year-old pencil case whose zip had been cut through using my own bloody scissors during one particularly interesting physics lesson (no sarcasm there: the fact that my pencil case was attacked ensured that it really was particularly interesting.) I also felt that a pencil sharpener might complement my blunt pencils rather well, as a file would my loose papers. The pencil sharpener was acquired rather speedily, perhaps because I am drawn to niftiness -- this particular one employs hinges and leverage to produce a sharpening experience like no other. The file and pencil case took twenty minutes to find in all, but that was largely due to my own fussiness. I paid up and got out, intending to use my swathes of change but failing because there was simply too much there to be handled efficiently and a queue was forming.

After this, I went to Clinton Cards, hoping to procure a card or two for my dad's birthday, and perhaps a small gift for a friend whose birthday is also coming up. I managed to get him a card (and a damn good one), and I should perhaps have got one for my friend too, but I thought I had a generic card kicking about and was expecting to buy her a present somewhere. I didn't bother fiddling about to pay with my change collection, because I wanted to get out of the shop as quickly as possible. It's music, layout and size were beginning to get to me. It had it's own café, for God's sake. A café in a card shop in a shopping centre near a pub that is also a restaurant!

It was now that the trip went downhill, perhaps because of Clinton's effect on my mind. I ran into my dad, who had given me a lift. He had already been to Savacentre to buy the relevant groceries, and so I would have to get the toothbrush I never told you that I needed as part of my own shopping, something which I utterly forgot to do. I then spent approximately forty minutes failing entirely to find gifts for my father or my friend, even though I had very good ideas for gifts for both of them. And so, defeated, and with only change to give as gifts and to brush my teeth with, I departed, walking straight past the Halifax I had intended to deposit about fifty quid in.

I've spent some time thinking about how I can acquire a gift with my limited time, but as I can't pay for anything over the internet and can hardly ask Dad to buy his gift on his credit card, there's not a lot I can do. But there's always a way. So, Katie, in case you read this before I give you some naff, bizarre and clearly handmade gift accompanied by a one-pound book token, I really am sorry.