A Shopping Miracle
Last Saturday was the Grand Final of the Australian Rules Football competition. I wasn’t going to any house parties this year so I decided to watch it on tv at home. But supplies were required first.
Rain was forecast, but when I stepped out to do my shopping, prepared to wade against the tide of football-crazed fans (I live practically next door to the sports ground), it was gloriously sunny. I didn’t need an umbrella, I stupidly decided.
Little did I suspect that I was in for a series of unfortunate events.
I didn’t need an umbrella, I stupidly decided.
Everything was fine until I left the supermarket and saw that drops of rain were falling. I shrugged fatalistically, and crossed the road to the video library. As I waited to collect my DVDs, I chatted to Bartholomew the proprietor, a man I have known a long time. ‘It’s Melbourne,’ he drawled, ‘how could you come out without an umbrella? What were you thinking?’
‘I know,’ I replied lugubriously.
When I exited, I saw it was a deluge. I stood under an awning for a moment, thinking to wait it out, but then Bartholomew rushed out waving a vintage umbrella. ‘Do you want to borrow this? A customer left it behind last winter.’ He waved off my profuse thanks. ‘Return it whenever you remember.’ Hmm, it was quite cute, black with a little wooden handle. Perhaps I would forget to return it for a long time. I set off.
It was raining so hard my jeans were soaked within moments, and I ran for another awning. And then the strap of my handbag broke. Of course. What next? I examined the damage and realised it could fortunately be repaired with the aid of a pair of pliers, but that would have to wait. Right now, I would wait out the rain in the op shop that I was fortuitously standing in front of. It was an expensive charity store, with goods over-priced for their quality, so I doubted there was much chance I would be tempted by anything.
But – cue triumphant, heavenly sounding chord of music – I spotted something remarkable! A new pair of shoes: exactly the pair I had admired a week or two ago in the shoe store Wittner and dismissed because I didn’t really need them (or to spend $140 on them, more to the point). There they were, in all their leopard-spotted glory, IN MY SIZE, marked $15. It was Fate. I sighed ecstatically as I purchased them.
Minor domestic disasters matter nought when it comes to shoe bargainry.
Then I raced home in time for the football, ripped off my wet jeans, turned on the tv and discovered I had no channel seven, and two channel nines, and sat on the floor in my undies as I searched through the manual for instructions on retuning the sports channel. After that the downlight in the bathroom blew, and I had no replacement globes.
But it didn’t matter – I was still bathed in the light of shopping glory. Minor domestic disasters matter nought when it comes to shoe bargainry. (I did manage to repair the strap on my bag too.)