Hamish McShanks

Hamish McShanks Secret Diary w/e 9^th April 2006

I’ve decided shopping can be quite a traumatic experience. A controversial opening statement you may think, but bear with me. If you’re a bloke, you carry out two main types of shopping. That’s shopping for yourself and shopping for others. Shopping for yourself is very straight forward i.e. 1. Enter shop 2. Head straight to desired item 3. Collect item and head to checkout 4. Present item and pay. At this point you usually watch in awe as your gift gets wrapped competently and effortlessly (i.e. by a girl) and then you leave. Simple, straight forward and efficient I think you’ll agree.

The second type of shopping you have is shopping for other people. Fundamentally the same procedure, but with one additional step. 1-4 are as above then you have number five. 5. Watch *Girlfriend/Mother/Sister open said present (* delete as appropriate) then try to mask their disappointment at the thoughtless nature of the gift.

Now, neither of these types of shopping are traumatic. Admittedly the frosty atmosphere after your girlfriend has opened her birthday present to find a pair of oven gloves is not the most enjoyable, but it’s hardly traumatic. Oh and a bit of helpful advice here guys, getting her initials embroidered on the gloves doesn’t really help. Ironing board covers don’t go down well either, and don’t even think about a Hoover. These all come under the category of ‘household essentials’. Protesting that the house doesn’t have a birthday doesn’t win you brownie points either. Trust me on this I have learnt the hard way over the years. Now of course I’m enlightened and twenty first century …..

However I recently discovered another type of shopping that I did find rather harrowing. This I think is a function of age rather than anything else, but it was still unpleasant. I am referring to ‘technical’ shopping. This is when you pop out to get some specific piece of DIY equipment for a household task or a simple part for your car. You know exactly what you need and have always been perfectly comfortable shopping in these kinds of establishments. That is until you realise that the kindly grey haired old gentleman who used to work in the parts department, and was so understanding of your needs, has been replaced with a snooty pre-pubescent youth who doesn’t even understand that excavating nuggets of bogey with his index finger is not a spectator sport.

It used to be great, you would ask for a part and old father time would gently quiz you, coaxing out further snippets of information about the nature of your purchase. All the while he would be silently diagnosing the problem as he continued chatting. Then he would deftly guide you towards the item you actually needed, rather than the one you were about to buy in error ‘Ah yes I had the very same problem myself sir (a complete lie) You would probably be better changing the *insert part name here first and see if that works sir’ He understood people and their little foibles. He knew what customer care was really about.

This was not the case when I visited the cycle shop. Apparently bicycle technology has moved on a lot in the last few years. Unfortunately old Mr Johnstone couldn’t keep up with the times. To my horror this genial, wizened, helpful old gentleman had been replaced by what looked like a toddler.

Having recently started cycling to work and nearly concussed myself with my own rucksack I was after a set of panniers. A rucksack is great for stowing your gear and very comfortable when your walking but it aint quite as practical on a pushbike. Every time I leant forward the top of the sack would skelp me on the back of the head. Worse still it was also pushing my helmet down over my eyes. So not only was I receiving repetitive head injuries but I was also playing blind mans cycle. Not a game you want to play on a busy main road! A pannier rack for the rear of the bike seemed the easiest solution ….

Ding! I slapped the old brass bell on the counter. The youth extracted his finger from his nostril and grunted ‘What?’. Good start I thought. Things didn’t improve when I noticed the bogey covered finger appeared to be attached to a pirate. Presumably the bandana was to protect him from the searing Scottish sun? His T-shirt had a large ‘X’ across the chest. I resisted the urge to ask if it was his signature and ploughed on ‘I’d like a pannier rack for my bike, it’s a Ralei-‘ He cut me off in mid sentence and started rattling away on the keyboard of the VDU in front of him ‘700C or 26?’, ‘-gh .. er what?’, ‘Caliper, V-Brake or cantilever?’, ‘Uuum I .. er’, ‘Do you have Shimano red rock GTR rims?’, ‘possibly’ I replied weakly. This continued for some time and eventually he dived through the back and returned with some bags.

‘Oookay this is your R34 Double butt aluminium blah blah blah’ It all went over my head. I just nodded at what I thought was the appropriate time. I did manage to query whether I could return the goods if they didn’t fit. He assured me that there was no way this wouldn’t work. Clutching a number of bags in my hands, I headed for home.

After unpacking the various bits ‘n’ bobs and looking at the diagrams it didn’t take long to work out that what he’d sold me wasn’t suitable for my bike. It was a blow. Now I was going to have to go back and try to explain this to the whizz kid. Sighing, I repackaged everything and trudged back to the shop. Ten minutes later I was exiting with yet more parts that ‘would definitely work’. I traipsed home, amazed at my own gullibility.

Unsurprisingly they didn’t work. My bike hadn’t miraculously metamorphosed into one with a pannier rack and all that had been achieved were scraped knuckles and ignition of my blue touch paper. I sprinted back to the shop.

DingDINGDING! ‘Would you stopmmfggn’ I dropped the bags on the floor and pulled Captain Pugwash across the counter until his nose was touching mine ‘It doesn’t work me old hearty', 'you probably just need a-‘, ‘refund?’, ‘agggg’, ‘you said refund didn’t you?’, ‘ugghhhh’. He scrabbled in the till and thrust a handful of notes at me. I carefully counted out my cash and pushed the change back ‘Here’s some pieces of eight for you Cap’n’, ‘Now if I ever’s sees you again I’ll shove a hornpipe in yoor bung hole ye scurvey dog Aaaaaar!’

I could really get into this pirate m’larky ye know….

Doei