There has been much angst in the Davies household. I inadvertently went to Ikea and made the serious man-mistake of taking the initiative. I had been told to buy paper napkins and bought white ones. I could not have been more wrong. After over 30 years of marriage my wife had suddenly developed an aversion to white. I was clearly not keeping up.
Fortunately the planet was saved as my youngest daughter went to Ikea soon after and bought coloured napkins. It was a close call and catastrophe averted Adelaide could get back to a normal life. However the white napkins have been piled up in the kitchen with the offending receipt ready for me to take them back for a refund. After weeks of nagging I finally shagged down to Ikea, which is miles away just for a refund of $15.98.
Now flush with cash I made the mistake of idling into the food section of Ikea. We now have five kilos of Swedish chocolate and three kilos of Swedish jam. At least I did not buy white chocolate. I am not making that mistake twice. The whole of Australia is very grateful for my perspication.
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The episode reminds of my trip to Costco during Covid. A queue of 200 was ready for store opening and within minutes was quickly consumed by the cavern that is Costco. They even had toilet paper but this ran out quickly. Thereupon there was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth by those who were unfortunate to miss out including me.
There was a potentially ugly scene in the car park as one of the lucky recipients of a bag of toilet rolls went to return his empty trolley. One of the ‘unfortunates’ then opened his boot and nicked the toilet rolls without the purchaser seeing. Remind me not to do that again.
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Last night I ended up in a basement dungeon bar somewhere between Peel and Leigh Street. There is no sign nor a door. You press on a panel in the wall and an opening appears. Only the cognisenti know of its existence so it is a quiet place. Somehow my friend and I ended up chatting to two gay men, one of whom was a cross-dresser wearing striking make-up. My debut novel, which I hope to publish later this month, has a major character who is a cross-dresser. Maybe that is a good omen. Let’s hope so. Fingers crossed.