Happy Shopping

I was out shopping at my local supermarket earlier today and for some strange reason I suddenly felt blissfully happy. I can think of no real idea why. There were no special sales I was interested in, they were out of rice and cream crackers, the shop was very busy, so there was absolutely no reason. Or maybe it all started earlier, when I saw the flag in the street, out to celebrate Liberation Day. Or those cheerful flags on the tram. Or maybe it was just the sunshine and all the bright summer clothes everywhere. Or maybe it was the man I saw in his summer shorts there, who looked very happy, that might have been contagious.

And then I turned into observer mode, always an easy thing to do in a supermarket. It's a place where you need to go even though it is not a place you want to be. At the check out, just as I had finished putting my shopping up, ready to be taken to the cashier, a man stood behind me who was probably in a hurry and he needed to put all his shopping up there too. Straightaway. There wasn't much room, but he did make a start, pushing me aside in the process. The people just in front of me took a long time organising their change, using their debit card, so we had to wait a while, and this man behind me was very carefully stacking as much as he could on what little space there was, reorganising it all to fit more on. And of course, after a few minutes all my stuff started to move, and there was a lot of space, more than he could possibly need. And we all had to wait anyway, so I was wondering what the point of the rush and the stacking was. All part of modern life, I guess.

After my exciting trip to the supermarket I treated myself to a short visit to a second-hand bookshop just round the corner, one of the few here in Amsterdam I had never visited before. It was one of those shops that isn't really a shop, doesn't feel or like a shop, but where they do sell books. An elderly man was carrying some boxes outside, then took a seat in the sun with his newspaper to recover from this strenuous work. He was explaining to an acquaintance that he would be working on the shop sometime, to try and organise the stock, but today he just intended to enjoy the sunshine. When I walked into the shop my fingers started to itch. Piles, boxes of books, all in complete disarray, just screaming out to be organised, and a lot of empty and half empty shelves. And one of my life's passions, my therapy, is organising books on shelves. I had to muster all my self-restraint not to start organising there and then. I found a big pile of National Geographic Magazines in the corner, which I went through, trying to complete my Antarctic collection, and I ended up buying two. And I left them all nicely organised on three small shelves. They looked very nice like that. No cash register in the shop, of course, so I just paid the old man sitting outside in the sun. Just for a moment I was tempted to volunteer my services, but then I remembered my own bookcases. And I can't deprive that nice old man of the joy of reorganising his own bookshelves, that would be too cruel.