Right foot. Waver. Left foot. Ponder. Right foot. Left foot. Tentative pause. Enjoy casual gaze in shop window. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Linger. Keep lingering. Switch shopping bag to the other hand. Left foot. Examine swarm of people on your left. Right foot. Left foot. Make trivial comment to person beside you. Left foot. Right foot. Take up as much space as possible. Left foot…
THIS. MUST. STOP.
It’s people like this that are all that is wrong with the world. It’s people like this that are ruining our society. It’s people like this that makes my patience simmer, my nerves throb and my blood boil. You know exactly who I mean, I can hear your insides churning too just at the thought of them. Please save us from the WILLY NILLY WALKERS.
I’m talking about those people in today’s fast paced society, who feel it appropriate to meander as painfully slowly as possible down busy walkways and just get in the blimming way. It’s like they’re taking a walking nap. They clog up the pathways, induce further stress to the dashers around them and worst of all, they are completely oblivious to the mayhem they cause. A polite ‘excuse me’ just won’t cut it; they can’t hear you at their frequency. They need to be shaken out of their sauntering spheres or better yet, they can take their snoozing ambles somewhere else. London has no time for dawdlers.
Foolishly, this weekend at Brent Cross, I thought I’d find a method to skirt around the problem. Ever the bubbly optimist, I attempted to find a simple way around the aggravating amblers. Of course, as I’m starting to learn through my teenage years, things are much easier said than done. Like oh so many of my experiments; it failed, rather miserably too. Though, to take a glug from the glass half full, it does provide an entertaining anecdote at the dinner table.
So I’m rushing. I need to get some stationery at the other end of the complex before closing time- in 7 minutes- as well as hit Boots (for essential lip balm), all in keeping with my mad dash against the ticket warden, threatening Mum’s car. The ticket expires in 12 minutes. The race is on.
Adrenaline pumping, heart thumping; I begin to slide in and out of the heaving mass and dart up the narrow, congested shopping parade. But then no, oh no, there it was. Holding everything up, nonchalantly swaying through the shopping crowds and blocking hoards of consumer traffic; It was none other than a willy nilly walker.
Time racing; I was having none of it. It was time to push on, take that empowering stride through the crowds and not crumble to the Willy Nilly. Shoulders back, spine straight and eyes fixed on Smiths; I began. I surged through, shops blurring at my sides, feet darting meticulously through the masses, ducking and dodging while eyes marvelled at my boldness. Olympic athletes eat your hearts out.
It was all seemed a little too good to be true. Head in the clouds, swept up in speed of it; I soon realised it was. Legs buckling as I hit a small obstacle; I was quickly brought out of my daze and crashed back down to the reality. The cold, hard mall-floor reality. I tumbled, bags flailing in all directions, and went head first into a nut stand. The obstacle I’d hit was in fact a toddler who now thought it appropriate to bawl hysterically and point accusingly at the crimson faced me, sitting sheepishly in a pool of cashew nuts.
And do you know what the worst thing about it all was? Not the clear up of nuts off the floor in front of the hundreds of judging eyes or the hefty parking ticket that I ended up presenting to my mum. Oh no. You see, far worse than any of this was that while clearing up my mess I caught a glance of the willy nilly walker who, in the meantime, had made it as far as WH Smith.
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