The Blues

Unlocking the Keys to Shopping Success

On October 23, 2010, in Life, Shopping, by Rosie

This is what happened.

There was this woman who went to a huge shopping mall. She had several places to visit, chores to do and things to purchase that took her all over the precinct, into changing rooms, under shelves. She didn’t want to be there. She preferred to be out in the open, inhaling the fresh air, eyes free from the stimuli of shiny, flickering things.

Still, she was a woman on a mission. She went through the sliding doors and perused the first information board she stumbled across. Plotting her best route around the mall, this woman thought she could have everything done within the hour. I was ready to minimize my time under the buzzing lights of shopping tinsel town.

It started very well. Clothes mending shop visited and organized. Optus shop, large department store, shoes shop — check, check, check. Last but not least was the medical benefits place where I had to get a ticket, sit in a lovely, comfy chair and wait until the computerized voice announced ‘ticket A130, please proceed to counter number 5.’

After a bit of a wait there, it was all over. I was free to grab some veggies for dinner on the way out and scoot off, calculating that I probably wouldn’t have to visit the large manufacturing market until the eye-gouging frenzy of Christmas.

(It’s not that I have a mall phobia — shoppinghateobia — it’s just that malls hate me. They always welcome me in, eat my brain and spit me back outside more vague than ever!)

Last Tuesday, I opened my bag to get my car keys out to drive home. I was at the point of exiting the shopping complex and that feeling was so exhilarating, I was getting ready in advance. A little like driving someone home who is eager to get away from you (or an older member of the community) where they get their keys out about ten minutes before you stop in front of their house!

Lo and behold, I couldn’t find my keys! Thinking they were tucked in the bottom of my handbag (or in the zippered section or folded in the creases of one of the 40 receipts) I found a seat and started sorting through my stuff. I emptied things out, I resorted, I put things back, emptied them out again, put them back …

After ensuring the keys of the car, house, backdoor, shed were nowhere on my person, I began to sweat. Suddenly, the shopping mall looked like the monster I had always imagined it to be! It had grown teeth. Not only would it spit me out into Vague Land, but this time it would chew off all my parts, boil my heart, brain and head, spew me into the car park like a mangled piece of mall debris.

I was so HOT. And not in the sexy way, either.

So, I started to retrace my steps. Into the clothes mending shop — excuse me, please, have I left a large set of keys here? — the Optus store, the large department store. The shoe area — excuse me, lady. Have you seen a large set of keys? Well, if you have, give them! — through to the women’s department. No luck. Finally, the medical benefits store front, with the comfy chairs, the automated voices, the big crowds of people. It was here that I thought I would find them, tucked into the cushion, on the floor, perhaps on the counter where I was served by a lovely lady.

Unfortunately, there were many people sitting where I had been, using the same counter I had used. I had to look beneath chairs they were seated upon, shift cushions beneath their ample buttocks (I didn’t, but I felt like it). I approached the lady in between her customers (NOT done at the numbered automated voice over place) — I’ve lost my keys, you mothercutters. I cannot go anywhere without them. I know you have them. GIVE THEM TO ME, FFS!

I was so HOT. The blood, it was pumping to my face, into my (non) cleavage, into the pound centres of my temples. One dear lady of European origin, perhaps in her 70s, said ‘darlink! Vot is wrong, hey? You look for somepin?’

Heated, I told the cutter what the hell was wrong! ‘Do YOU have my keys, bitch? IF so, I’m going to kill you for this!’

She didn’t, though she looked at me kindly, asked if she should move her bottom so I could look ‘neath her cushion, and said ‘You vill not be able to drive ‘ome. You stuck!’

OMFG! Thanks so much, Old Pussface of the Obvious.

Shattered, I thanked Pussface and walked out of that final shop. Slumping, teary, overwrought (did I mention heated?) I didn’t know quite what to do until I spied a young security member of the mall brigade. I stumbled over to the girl and asked her to direct me to Centre Management.

‘Don’t like your chances,’ Pussface 2 said when I mentioned what had happened. ’But don’t go to Centre Management. If anyone has handed them in, they’d be at one of the (MILLION) information desks around the complex.’

I was ready to give in. Defeated, I walked for another couple of minutes and found a random Info desk with a kindly looking woman behind it. She was secretly looking at Facebook on her computer and watching Foxtel on one of the big screens near her workstation, but who am I (key loser, shopping mall failure) to judge.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ I cried to her, wondering if she was poking people on her Facebook. ’I've lost my keys, an old lady said I would never get home, I don’t know where to start …’

As I started to sob, she asked me what they might have looked like and I told her (in between sobbing and being very hot). The next instant, she held them up to my face and said that someone had just handed them in. If that person was here now, I would wrestle them to the ground and kiss them firmly on ripe lips. As it was, the lady behind the counter was the recipient of my shocked gratitude. I held out my hand (in a dazed, crazy, maniacal way) and thanked her, but in so doing, over stayed my hand-holding moment a little.

She didn’t seem to mind about taking my hand, shaking it enthusiastically in the first few seconds. She got a bit uncomfortable when I continued to hold it as tears welled in moi eyes. Okay, so I may have held it like I could never let it go, but I was so, so relieved I had to hold something and she was the closest thing to be held.

I was in love with her.

As for the person who handed the in the keys. You’re lucky you had left the building!