Thoughts While Holding Eight Shopping Bags in the Run Up to Christmas

December 13, 2016 by Ray Morgan

I went on a huge shopping trip with my Mum at the weekend; we set out to get a dressing gown and a top, and ended up looking like cliches of shopaholics, laden with enormous bags.

In the first shop we went into, I found My Dream Dressing Gown. It was floor length, purple, mega-soft and luxurious. That'll make me look rad when I'm taking the bins out, I thought. SIDE NOTE: I was putting the bins out last week without my glasses on and someone said Good Morning! - I couldn't see who it was. If it was you, thank you. ANYWAY. I put the big, fluffy dressing gown on over my clothes and swished about the shop in it, not wanting to take it off. That was a good sign. Mum paid for it and said I had to forget about it until Christmas. Morgan family tradition.

Christmas finally all wrapped up, I was on a mission to get a top to wear at a wedding on Saturday, and my Mum looked at my new jeans with envy so I said we should try and get her a pair. We both became each other's personal shopper, Mum handing me hangers upon hangers of potential glitzy tops and finding time to help a woman in the changing room who didn't know if what she had tried on suited her or not. Gok who?

Then we went to try and get a pair of my aforementioned ultra-stretch high-waisted super skinny jeans, the description of which would usually make my Mum run for the hills. But she tried them on and said "Oh my god Rachel they're so comfortable" - and she bought two pairs.

We had a pit-stop lunch (when shopping, one must always have a pit-stop, whether it's for a sandwich, coffee, or glass of wine) and looked through our purchases. We ended the trip in M&S (ironically, where the adventure had begun) and my Mum needed something upstairs. I said I'd wait with the (eight-ish) shopping bags, so I plonked down on a seat near the entrance.

I became aware of an elderly woman hovering near me, so even though my heels were burning and my legs aching (my faux FitBit had told me that we'd walked 12,000 steps) I asked her if she wanted to sit down. "Thank you love," she said "there's not many polite people these days."

Another equally wobbly-on-her-feet woman came by, and said she needed a chair also. The only other chair in the store was occupied by a miserable teen, stabbing at her iPhone and unaware of the world around her, presumably waiting for a parent to finish their boring old shopping. I asked my two old ladies to watch my stuff, and went and asked the girl to give up her seat, because someone really needed it. She pulled out her earphones, looked mortified that anyone had spoken to her, and sloped away without saying a word. The second woman gratefully sat down and gave us a thumbs up from the other side of the entrance.

"Everybody always on their phones," my original lady said. I felt a pin of guilt as I'd been playing Scrabble on my phone when I'd been sitting down, but aware enough that someone nearby needed the seat more than I did.

We talked until my Mum got back, she wished us both a Merry Christmas and we left with all our giant bags. It made me think about how we should look up from our phones more often. I see it on the bus every day and I'm doing it too, picking songs to listen to on Spotify while I read my book, or seeing what comments have been left on Instagram from the day before, or Scrabble, I've always got at least three games on the go.

I made a sweet five minute friendship with a stranger in M&S at the weekend and I'll probably never see her again, but it made me feel good to help someone, take the time to chat about Christmas, and put my phone in my pocket where it belongs.

Because how urgent is that Instagram comment or Scrabble move really going to be?