The View from Parson Street Nose

Still feeling festive after a carol concert I'd just creaked open the door of my jalopy when my ears were assailed by a straggly-haired zealot ranting in the Asda car park.

"Heathen wastrels!" The man's arms were flapping like an agitated pigeon.

Two elderly ladies stopped by my side.

"'Is 'e talking about I?" said one, protectively clutching her Asda carrier bag. "I only went in for crumpets and a bottle of 'Arveys."

The other lady laughed and pointed a gloved hand towards a procession of women returning to their vehicles with heavily-laden trolleys.

The zealot began hacking up a hairball.

"You's small fry for the likes of 'im, Avril," said the lady with the gloves. "It's them lot over there e's aiming at."

"Throw away your fat and feed the devil." After guzzling down some water, the zealot had resumed bawling. "Embrace not your burgers – choose thrift instead."

"Get out of my s**ding way!" A woman crammed into a pair of over-stuffed leggings was trying to corner her wheeled mountain of grub around him.  "Go and preach your twaddle where someone gives a stuff."

The cash-point queue was a long one and I could feel my seasonal sparkle dimming as I tried hard not to listen to the lad in front of me boasting about his unsavoury exploits of the night before.

Transaction competed, I was relieved to find the zealot by my car had moved on, probably thwacked down New Charlotte Street by a turkey-totting housewife.

I could hardly get in through the door of Lidl where an over-excited teenaged girl was capering about by her mother's trolley.

"Look at the chocolate, Mum; can I have some, Mum? I like those little square ones."

About ten minutes later in snack foods the teenager belted past me, raced up to her mother and began bouncing up and down.

"Ooh, they've got Doritos. We've got to have some of those for Christmas." There was the squeak of a trainer on a tiled floor; the girl pitched sideways causing several boxes of crisps to cascade all over the aisle.

"Tansy!" The girl's mother screamed. "For the love of God, will you stop prancing about like a ninny and put those crisps back."

"It wasn't me, Mum! They sort of fell off, like. Do I have to?"

"Yes! Now!"

I almost turned my trolley over in my haste to escape to the other end of the shop. I couldn't have been there for more than two minutes when I heard the thunder of footsteps pounding up behind me and a piercing scream scrambled my neurons.

"Oh, my God! They've got those little sausages." The girl's hand snatched a pack so quickly she sent the rest of the tray crashing down into the chiller. "Can we have some, Mum?

"No!"

Her mother shoved the packet back on the shelf. "We've already got some, Tansy. Now, will you please leave the stuff alone!"  

"Oh, my God, they've got pizzas over there." The girl squealed like an excited piglet then smacked straight into a freezer cabinet.

I put my aching head in my hands and let out an anguished groan.

"Shame Lidl's don't do stun guns, aint it?"

I turned around to discover a thick-necked fellow smirking conspiratorially by my side.

I threw him a wan smile in response. "We were all young once," I said, desperately trying to retain the last feeble wisps of my once-merry mood.