A Day Out.

 Susan's birthday is approaching. She was born on the 15th of February, the day after Valentine's Day, so flowers and restaurants are a nightmare, though I do like the mid-week double-whammy of excess. She's actually working on her birthday, all day, so her celebratory dinner bloody well better be on the table when she gets in. And it will be - I already know what I'm cooking. Most of her gifts are bought too. And today I went out to get the wines. 

I know what you're thinking: it's still five days till the birthday, John. Is it safe leaving wine in the house for that long? With you in it, I mean? Relax, I'm not the booze-hound you think I am. There's been an unopened bottle of gin in the house since Christmas, and I've barely broken a sweat, never mind the seal. I could teach your average dominatrix a thing or two about restraint. 

Susan has a favourite wine. It is inexpensive but it is her favourite, therefore I was bound to get it. It's no longer sold by our usual vendor, who deliver, but it is sold by Direct Wine Shipments, who don't. So I decided to go into town. Direct Wine Shipments isn't exactly in town - I'd have to go in and walk out of it again - but I don't mind a walk. And besides, it was a nice day: the sky above was the vivid blue of Action Man's molded plastic pants. 

I almost walked into town. It's three miles but it's mostly down hill. I could get the bus back. But...the bus was three minutes away, so fuck it. By the time I sorted out my ticket and de-fogged my glasses the bus would be here. I checked my look in the bus shelter's plastic window. God, I looked good. I mean, not bad for fifty. Cool glasses, great hair. Paisley shirt and a sweet overcoat that covered a myriad sins. Jeans with turn-ups, desert boots: a classic look. Fey navvy. The same look I'd had for thirty odd years, but updated. Finessed. 

As soon as I got on the bus it started to tip down. Dodged a bullet there, I thought. Also, Ballyhackamore has it's own micro-climate - if it was raining here, it more than likely wouldn't be raining in town. 

The rain got worse. More people got on. None of them were wearing masks. The automated message on the bus advised the mandatory wearing of masks. Perhaps it's a problem of communication. Perhaps people don't know what "mandatory" means. More likely, they're just bored of this boring pandemic that's definitely gone away.* The rain poured down. I made lightning calculations, though there was no lightning, as yet. I'd intended to avoid the town centre, skirting around the edges and out into Sailortown - its a district of Belfast, not a niche nightclub - but there was no shelter out that way, so I decided to go into town after all. There's a Paperchase, and my aunt has a birthday coming up as well. 

I scurried through the pissing rain - there are no awnings at all in central Belfast - as passing buses sped through puddles, and passing youths flobbed onto the slick pavements. Outside Paperchase I whipped my mask out before going in and, when I looked down, noticed that somewhere on my journey a bird had taken a massive shit down the front of my coat. How? How had I not noticed this giant slick of avine diarrhea spattering down my front? My coat is blue, the shit is porridge grey - it stands out like blood on snow. 

The nearest available toilet was in M&S, so I looped round the block to M&S, where I discovered that the up escalator was out of order. The toilets were on the second floor. There were no stairs, which seemed like it might be a slight issue if there was a fire. I saw a man coming down the escalator. "How did you get up there?" I asked him. "In the lift," he said, "It's the only way." So, I went to the lift and pressed the up button. Nothing happened. I pressed the down button. Nothing happened. I pressed the up button again. Nothing happened, except my glasses fogged, and rain fell down my neck from my waterlogged hair. 

A beautiful Japanese woman with a pushchair of a type I hadn't seen in years, approached the lift and pressed the button. It immediately counted down from the second floor. As the door opened, she realised I was also intending on getting into the lift, and she hesitated. I could see her point. I was lank, damp, masked, blank with condensation, and covered in shit. But we both got in anyway, and she took me down to the basement food hall. 

At the basement two more women got in, one with a pram, the other with a Zimmer frame. The pram one was friendly and told us the lift had been playing up all day. She knew as she'd "been into M&S twice already today". She was right. We pressed the button half a dozen times. We made it to the ground floor again, where another woman with a Zimmer frame got in and, confusingly, pressed the button for the floor we were on. I leaned over and pressed the button for floor 2 and we were off. We got, finally, to the second floor. We'd been at every floor and none of the three women had left the lift. I was finally where I wanted to be and nobody was moving. "Excuse me," I said to the woman with the frame standing in front of me. She didn't move. "Excuse me". She didn't shift. I was facing the real possibility of the doors closing and the lift heading back to the food hall again. "EXCUSE ME, PLEASE." I said. She moved about half an inch, and I squeezed past, trying not to get shit all over her. 

At the toilets I headed for the disableds, knowing that as soon as I went inside there would be a knock on the door from a genuinely disabled person. But I needed the room and the privacy. I took the coat off, marveling again at how I hadn't felt the thick stripe bisecting my body like a sash of shit, and got to work with hand towels, hand sanitiser and soap. It took ten minutes before I was satisfied it was all off, and another five before I was happy my hands were clean. As I was drying them, there was a knock at the door, and I strolled nonchalantly past yet another woman with a Zimmer frame. 

It was still raining. I went into a second hand bookshop, but it was full of damp people with backpacks blocking every aisle. So I crossed the road and went into Forbidden Planet. There was hand sanitiser at the door, but none of the staff wore masks. Led Zeppelin's "Ramble On" was playing, which was ridiculously on the nose. I went looking for a compendium edition of Howard the Duck comics from the early 70's, but they didn't have it. They did have a load of 2000AD back issues (progs) which I considered buying. (My brother has a birthday coming up and I thought I might be able to get a copy from the week he was born - he is the same age as 2000AD - but the earliest they had was May 1977, which was two months too late). It was issue 5 I would have been after, cover dated 26th March 1977, which features a giant, rampaging gorilla. Again, ridiculously on the nose.  

I went outside. It had stopped raining. I'd wasted an hour. It was now or never. By the time I'd reached the dual carriage-way, it was raining heavily again, but I was on my way. A tree had been uprooted, taking up the entire pavement, forcing me to step into on-coming traffic in a squall. I was absolutely convinced that the wine wouldn't be in stock, and that the entire journey had been a fecal matter-spattered waste of time. 

I was wrong. They had the wine. I bought two bottles, and then another two bottles from the same range. Well, Valentine's Day is coming up as well. The server loaded the bottles into a box, because everyone else who shops there goes back to the car and pops it on the passenger seat. I may have been the only customer ever to go back to the bus stop. So, I had to buy a sort of straw bag, with a rope handle and their name stamped on it, that cost me a fiver, a poverty tax of sorts. 

It was still raining outside and continued to do so until I was back at the house. Later it cleared up beautifully. 

*It hasn't.