Detective Dipshit

I watched a show on patterns the other day.  An affable British chap presented his viewers with various everyday scenarios, the point of which was to prove that we lofty humans are just like ants, or the planets, or whatever.  We may feel that we are agents of our own destinies, encountering and navigating a series of random occurrences every day.  But no.  Apparently, our seemingly random existence is made up of a rotating set of pre-determined patterns, as predictable, if you have the right algorithm, as the migrations of whales in winter. 

As mildly uncomfortable as this made me feel, I really had to give it to that English guy.  He was sooooo right.  It was one of those watershed moments.  Nothing I did was random!  Every decision I made was determined by a place in my brain labelled ‘What Katie does when X happens’.  I was trapped. 

If I was a brilliant mathematician, I would get to work figuring out my own algorithm in order to intentionally subvert it and then, then I would do something truly random!  What would it be!  I don’t know.  I don’t know what an algorithm is.  What I have instead done is spend the past week noticing more and more ‘shit that I always do’.  One of the things in the ‘shit that I always do’ box is this… 

Put my headphones in and walk to the local grocery store with Richard Stubbs in the Afternoon and the dog for company.  Tie dog up, reassuring her that I am not abandoning her forever more.  Dog doesn’t believe me.  Leave wining dog and enter said grocery store.  Proceed to magazine isle.  Leaf through one of those truly horrible Kim Kardashian mags for a few minutes, guilt ravaging my soul.  Put magazine down and begin shopping, working my way from the chocolate to the vegie sections, reciting in my head the contents of that night’s intended dinner because I haven’t made a list.  Pay.  Collect hysterically relieved dog.  Walk home.

Nothing ever changes.  Except the other day, when I was at the bit where I stare at the ‘bikini bods’ of celebs, some of whom have always ‘gone too far!’ while other, slightly less skinny ones are ‘embracing their curves!’; something did.

A determined looking woman approached me.  ‘Hello.’  She announced loudly.  ‘I’m the store detective.’  To prove she was indeed the store detective, she produced her detective’s badge, which she waved with gusto for some time in close proximity to my nose.  Did you know there are store detectives and they have badges, just like the police people they weren’t motivated enough to become?  Well, there’s one in Footscray, anyway.

My only thought was that I was being reprimanded for the vulgarity of my magazine choice, that they had planted those mags there as some sort of social experiment to see what cretins would be lured in. 

‘I’m going to have to ask you to put that magazine back.’  Demanded the power-drunk detective.

‘I don’t normally read that one.’  I said in feigned embarrassment as I slid the magazine back onto the rack.  ‘You were out of Vogue Living.’

She didn’t like my joke.  ‘I was watching you.’  She revealed, fired up now.  ‘You weren’t just leafing through to see if you wanted to buy it.  You were reading it.’

She was right.  I considered congratulating her on her fine detective skills.  I refrained.

‘If we let everybody just read the magazines in store,’ she spluttered, ‘then no-one would buy them, would they?’

I nodded, imagining the chaos if they let everybody just read the magazines in store.  Hordes of budget-conscious gossip addicts stopping up the isles, elbowing eachother out of the way while the lady at the checkout rued the day they changed the policy, her job now on the line due to plummeting ‘Famous’ sales. 

The woman had stopped and was glaring at me impatiently.  What did she want?  Remorse?

‘I didn’t know that was a thing.’  I said, picking up a shopping basket before she could unload anymore bottled-rage onto me.  I then began going through the motions of my regular shop.  But something was not right.  I found myself devoid of the concentration required to weigh up the various brands of beans.  I had been wronged. 

I couldn’t let it go.  Who did that woman think she was?  Apprehending good customers to get her kicks?  I wasn’t going to be a pawn in her imaginary moral crusade!  I would get my justice. 

I found the manager and was immediately relieved to see he was the sort of older white male that always seems to like me.  I put on my sweetest I-could-be-your-daughter-voice and invoked his protective instincts as I recounted the monstrous actions of his crazed store detective.  He apologized profusely, assured me he’d sort it out, and strode with purpose into the bowels of the store.   

Collecting the dog, who had befriended some other tethered pooch and was utterly indifferent to my arrival, I realised that life isn’t entirely predetermined.  No matter how concrete our rituals, there’s always some bloodthirsty ego-tripper waiting to throw a spanner in the works.  Ain’t life grand.