I'm not a great shopper. In fact I'm probably on some list of terrible non-shoppers, people who aren't doing their bit to keep our fabulous consumer economy going. The rest of the family shop slightly more than me, which is probably a good thing, but they prefer to leave me behind because I moan too much. Actually I do like some shops. There's a greengrocer's near our house where one of the staff calls out into the street, all day long, 'come and buy your strawberries, your lovely fresh strawberries' in this wonderful sing-songy voice. But anyway...
Today Fate took me to Toys-a-saurus, a store the size of a small planet - you know the one I mean. When we walked in it smelt of warm plastic, and though there were only one or two humans around there was a constant chirruppy hubbub. It was like a nesting colony of electronic birds. It was as though we were naturalists and had stumbled into a forest full of rare creatures, only these were all trapped behind screens or sealed up in plastic. A lot of the creatures were talking, saying chirpy little phrases over and over again in cheery little voices.
Somebody somewhere had designed all these things so they would move about or flash or chirp, and presumably they had designed them because they thought kids would like them. There were no kids there, though, no people at all apart from us and a couple of workers who looked a bit bewildered by it all. It crossed my mind that maybe all the kids were out playing in the park or in the woods. Maybe they were playing cricket or learning how to sew. Their mums and dads would be searching for them, shouting 'We're going to Toys-a-saurus! Right now!" and they'd be hiding, shushing the younger children, waiting for the grown-ups to go away.
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