Pyjamas Off For A Screw

There's a fashion movement just now which involves wearing your pyjamas to go out.

I saw a young boy today being pulled along by his mother. He was about five years old. He had on a large raincoat and heavy duty outdoor shoes, and multicoloured striped loose cotton trousers. Obviously pyjamas.

I have noticed young teenage girls wearing loose cotton colourful trousers in the pyjama style when they are out and about in the city centre. I don't know if these are sold as outdoor trousers in the style of pyjamas or whether these girls are making a fashion statement by wearing what they find under their pillows.

A few months ago I saw an extreme case of this though.

I was at B&Q one evening in the summer, about 9pm and it was getting dark. A family got out of their car and came towards the shop door, as I was leaving. Mum, Dad and young son were fine. The teenage daughter was wearing a very fluffy and very pink dressing gown over her pink pyjamas and huge soft pink slippers.

What the fuck?

What the fuck are these people thinking?  Dad says he's just nipping to B&Q to get some screws for that shelf. Wife says she'll come and bring the kids. She asks the daughter if she's not getting changed out of her pyjamas.

"No, it's fine Maw, naebody will notice."

Yes everybody will notice a loon walking round a DIY store in her pyjamas and dressing gown.

I have seen both women and men in my local Spar shop wearing their slippers, but this was beyond anything. It's mental.

Cheerleading Moves In A Kilt

Last year at Hogmanay, we went to a friend's house along the road. There was three couples and the kids. I had my kilt on and plenty of wine.

It was a great night. So great in fact, at one point I was seen in the kitchen with a ten year old girl, dancing and doing cheerleading moves wildly with my kilt flailing around me. We're going to the same house again this year and the same people are coming so there's a good chance I'll be doing that again.

Dear Old People, If You Are Done...Move On

I was at a checkout yesterday in Morrisons in Anniesland. There was an old woman in front of me. Old people sometimes take a long time so I prepared myself.

The young female assistant had helped her get her items into the plastic bags and then stood back a little before scanning my things so let the old woman put her purse away and move away. But she didn't.

As it became clear to me the old woman in front of me was basically hanging around to maintain some form of human contact in her empty life, I thought 'fuck this I'm not waiting on you', so I moved up past the till to start packing my items. She had finished putting her purse away and was just standing there. Not going to go anywhere. She didn't even move round to give me more room.

I moved up right beside her, inches between us, and reached right across in front of her to reach some bags. She was a bit smaller than me and my upper arm was only 3-4 inches from her face. I made a point of reaching back again, trying to get closer this time to try to give her a hint. No go.

I hadn't heard any of the conversation before I arrived, but it her next line was;

"Aye, I huv tae take my cod liver oil every day," to the check out assistant, obviously thinking their conversation was still going on, even though the young girl was now scanning someone else's items and that person was fucking right there!

After this comment I did start laughing out loud a little and a few seconds later she wandered off. I felt sorry the for young girl who clearly felt she couldn't tell her to move on.

Next time this happens, and I'm sure it will as it has before, I will not be so polite as to simply laugh at them, I will simply ask them if they have finished their business, and if so, to please bugger off.

The Minister's Cat

This is a game my family play every New Year when we get together. It’s been done since as far as I can remember. Everyone in the room takes a turn by describing the minister’s cat with an adjective starting alphabetically. Everyone does ‘A’ then ‘B’ and so on, by saying the full line “The minister’s cat is an active cat” etc. According to Wikipedia it's a Victorian parlour game. How quaint.
Last year was the first year my son joined in. He was seven years old. As we went through the alphabet I realised with some uneasiness we were nearing the letter ‘F’.
Now, just to say…. I swear. I do. And sometimes I do it in front of the children. I know I shouldn’t. They know it’s bad as I’ve explained that to them and that these are words they shouldn’t say. I’m in no way a prude of any sort I don’t think but some of my family are a lot older and well, their values and outlook are different.
So, last 1st January, my son was sitting in the middle of the room with a toy, and doing very well with all the letters up to ‘E’. I was starting to get very nervous and my wife and I exchanged glances wondering if we should prompt our son with a suitable ‘F’ word to use.
When it came to it, he thought about it slowly and actually said “The minister’s cat is an effing cat”. Not a fucking cat, but an effing cat. So close, but potentially quite bad as well. There were a few nervous laughs, and we moved on.
A few days ago, I sat my son down to explain that we’d be playing this game again in a few days, and not to use any naughty words. Time will tell.
There is also another highly entertaining factor in this game, in our version anyway. It’s the elderly uncle who sometimes nods off to sleep during it. When it’s his turn, we have to shout at him to wake him up and remind him, and then he takes ages. He’ll stare at a point off in the distance and we think he’s ‘gone’. After a minute or so, my Aunt will remind him and he’ll slowly say “Aye, aye” in his really soft voice, then as is normal after another minute or so, he’s says the line “Which letter are we on?” It’s a drag, but very amusing.
So, if my son says “Fuck” in front of my eighty year old relatives on New Year’s Day I’ll report back.

Half Price Diamonds and Sweaty Balls

I went out shopping today for the sales. Where mugs like you and me can buy things at half price one day after we've just given it to the wife and kids... having paid full price for it. I say I went shopping. I actually drove my wife to the shops, and therefore the kids had to come as well.

It pained me when I went into the jewellers, not just another branch of the same chain, but the very same shop where I'd bought her some items of silver for numerous pounds, and saw the very same items for half the bloody price.

She was wanting to get a "winter coat" in a particular shop...which was closed. It opens tomrrow at 6am. Bugger that. We'll go when we want. If at all.

She did seem a bit miffed when I disappeared for half an hour and came back with a coat myself. Now, mine was not a winter coat, well it is, but I don't call it that. I don't have winter coats and summer coats. I have coats, and several of them. In recent years, I had a fetish for shirts, and had amassed more than sixty of them. Since I do the ironing in our house it was a real bastard. I don't understand the need to have a winter wardrobe, and in the summer you take out all the bigs coats and jumpers and put them in another cupboard. Why not.... just not wear it. That's what I do. In saying that though, my wardrobe is twice the size of my wifes as I have shitloads more clothes than her.

Anyway, shopping at Braehead Shopping Centre today. Brilliant. Especially as I wasn't after anything in particular. I felt as though I could just walk round watching other people go mental.

I did have to stand in a frigging queue in Argos though as the returns desk was buggered so had to join the main queue, then when I got to the front, the lassie told me she didn't do returns, so I had to stand aside while she served a myriad of other people while I waited for the young boy with the flock of seagulls hair handle a return for some Indian guy and his whole family. The Indian guy was overly polite to me, apologising profusely to me for keeping me waiting and I did feel a bit as though he felt as though he thought I was thinking it was his fault for me standing waiting, so I tried to put him at ease by basically blaming the shop staff myself, shaking my head etc. He was a lovely bloke, but he did leave his five year old son to carry huge Next Sale bags which were almost bigger than him and kept falling open, spilling clothes on the floor. That was funny.

Then another girl came on the tills who could do returns, but she ask me forward to do mine? Don't be stupid!. She took the first guy in the queue behind me...who had a return to do, then after that, she served a couple who were standing randomly in the shop, not even in the queue and had just walked up to her. Bastaaaaaardd.

And after they left I took my chances and just walked up to her without being called, but then her friggin till roll ran out and she wandered off for another two minutes searching under desks to find another.

Before I left the house, I had put on a white shirt with a light brown v-neck woollen sweater and thinking I would look quite stylish in the cold weather, left the house. I hadn't bargained for standing still in shop for thirty minutes under strong lights. By the time I left the shop I was sweating buckets. That was the first shop I went into. I had another four hours to go in that shopping centre. Later on I could feel the cold sticky fabric under my armpits and I couldn't figure out whether it was better to hold my arms out to try and let a bit of air in or just give up and rest in the sweat soaked fabric.

I don't even want to describe what my balls felt like. The sweat was pouring off them. I had an extreme urge to shove my hand down there and just unstick them from where they were attached to both thighs. It was almost like wearing a kilt with no underwear. Mucho sticky. I always wear boxers under my kilt. I went without once, never again.

Anyway at home, now and feeling a bit "stuffed up". A result of walking around in a sweat soaked shirt in cold weather. Ah well, I do have a nice new coat though.