Girls Are Scary

I head into my Local Shop, side-stepping the youths who darkly demand cigarettes and/or the purchase of Smirnoff Ice.

Having recently experienced an unpleasant episode involving a football, I now just want to purchase some cigarettes and return to the safety of my home.

Heading toward the counter, my heart sinks as I see an Elderly Person engaged in the purchase of every single lottery ticket available in the country. Perhaps the machine will run out of paper.

Also present are a group of schoolgirls, milling around being girly. I glance at them.

Shit. They are THAT age. Not women by any stretch of the imagination. Technically still girls, but girls who have realised they have some strange influence on adult men. That they can make them go red. And perspire. I’m not sure if they even now how or why.

I start to worry. Although by no means a matinee idol, I am not ugly. I am their ideal target. Thirties, not hideous. Christ.

It’s O.K. I think to myself. Just do not look at them.

I can already hear them whispering. Already. I know it’s about me. I start to feel quite warm.

God. They must be thirteen if that. Just don’t look at them. It’ll be O.K. It’ll be fine. Fuck me this hag is taking an aeon with her lottery tickets.

They start to giggle. The whispering continues. ‘He fancies you.’

Christ, I think. Just don’t look. Everything normal here.

My eyes do a spastic thing and, without warning, point themselves directly at the TITS of one of these barely pubescent girls.

Shit. SHIT.

They explode in a combination of laughter and whispers.

Fuck. FUCK.

I am now VERY hot. I really would like to be elsewhere, but would also quite like some cigarettes. Fuck me Miss Havisham is taking fucking forever with her cunting lottery tickets.

The laughter and whispering intensifies. Kinell, I think. I should tell them I’ve got a daughter. That’ll help.

Whilst thinking about my tormentors, my eyes unconsciously swivel toward them. And point directly at the ARSE of one of their number.

I’m dead in the water and all concerned know it. They have beaten me. Actually quite LOUD laughter and pointing of fingers ensues.

'He's got a hard-on!'

I have not.

Elderly Person completes her additional purchase of an entire roll of scratch cards and departs. I step to the counter.

Shop Assistant woman looks at me with distaste.

I decide that this will not do. I shall explain to her that this is just what girls of that age DO. That they have tricked and humiliated me because they have just discovered they CAN. Without fully realising why. Yes. I will do that.

Me: Um. Twenty Regal Filter please.

Shop Assistant: Uh-huh.

I make my purchase and head toward the door. My palms are wet. I stand in front of the glass door for a moment or two.

Nothing happens. I step back. Nothing happens.

Oh you twat. It was NEVER an automatic door.

More girlish laughter.

It is getting dark now. I head toward the door to open it manually but notice someone on the other side heading toward it at the same time. Being a gentleman I wait for this person to come in first.

And then realise that said person is merely my reflection in the glass that has, in the dark, become a mirror.

Considerably more girlish laughter.

I RUN home.