While I Was Shopping: Part 1

Chelsea Marsh laid down her basket and sighed. Another four items spilled into it, making the total of her hand basket up to twenty four. Wrenching her arm out of her socket as she picked the basket back up she headed toward the trolley bank and, removing one with a tug, she hurled the contents of her basket into it.

It hadn’t been a good day. No, in fact, it had been an almost diabolically BAD day, and now that it was over all she could think about was going back to her flat in London and slipping onto her couch with a hot drink and some chocolate. Make that a vodka and some popcorn. Actually, a bottle of wine and some crisps. Grunting she threw all of the items into her trolley, figuring she’d need something else to settle her the following night.

She yanked the trolley down another aisle, glancing at the late night shoppers around her looking dazed and expressionless as they threw packets of digestives and pots of Ovaltine in their trolleys. So this is what it is to be single, she thought as she continued down the freezer aisle, her eyes straying heavily on meal for ones and buy one get one free offers. She knew she was turning into her mother, but it wasn’t as though anyone were with her to notice. It didn’t matter that her fridge contained the vast majority of ASDA whoops items, or that her cupboards were laden with packets of rice for one, and tins of soup she ate all in one go. Or the fact that her entire social life could be written on the back of a pigmy playing card. No, she told herself, none of that mattered.

It was gone nine o’clock and she was out doing her weekly shop. Not out partying or drinking, nor snuggled up to a boyfriend or husband, and not even exchanging words with a handsome face at a bar. No, Chelsea was shopping. The one thing in all of the world that drove her mad to the point of distraction. The one thing she had asked her mother to do for her that morning, only to be told at 3 o’clock that afternoon that she wouldn’t be able to make it that day.

Chelsea threw in random packets of pasta and sauce in the vague attempt to look nonchalant about the whole experience, but her face said it all. She hated shopping.

“Excuse me,” said a small voice behind her, and Chelsea turned her head sharply to see who it was that was interrupting her whilst she was rummaging for some frozen chips.

The gentleman that stood before her looked cute. No, in fact, he was downright gorgeous. His brown wavy hair was dark, and framed his boyish face, complete with kind green eyes and dimples. When he smiled at her shyly as she stood there staring at him, she jumped and quickly turned right round. She checked his hands for rings, or any sign of other female attachment and she sighed inwardly. He was probably gay then. No one that good looking who was not married or attached in some way had to be gay.

Resting a hand on her hip she suddenly became aware of the way she was dressed. Her long dark hair was greasy and needed washing, and she had absentmindedly pulled it into a funny knot over her shoulder. Her blue eyes were ringed and tired. Her blue top had coffee stains on it and she was wearing her least flattering skirt along with a pair of tights that had gained four ladders just getting off the train in the morning. All in all she was scruffy and disgusting, and here she was faced with a virtual God. There was no way she was going to triumph.

She feigned complete lack of interest as the man stood waiting for her to ask him what he had come over for.

“Excuse me,” he said again, “but I was wondering if you’d……” he trailed off as he saw a slight frown appear on her face, but then decided to carry on. “I was wondering if you realised that you had a piece of toilet roll attached to your tights.”

Chelsea felt squashed. All attempts to seduce flew out of her mind, and she considered feigning complete and utter lunacy. She continued to stare at him and she realised that her bug-eyed appearance was making the God nervous.

He wrung his hands and looked away. “I thought you ought to know that’s all. I’m sorry.”

He quickly slid back to his trolley and disappeared around the corner of the aisle, leaving Chelsea to stare into space like she was in a trance.

Snapping to, she looked down and sure enough, on her right leg, was the largest piece of toilet paper she had ever seen in her life. It was so huge you could wipe a giants arse with it.

Grimacing and pulling it off her tights, causing another huge ladder to appear, she screwed it up and put it into her jacket pocket. She made a mental note to burn it in a heretical ritual when she got home.

Throwing another meal for one in her basket she headed for the checkouts, suddenly sick to the back teeth with shopping, and not really caring that she probably needed more than she had got. What could go wrong with twelve tins of beans and four loaves of bread, three meals for one and some ice cream, vodka, crisps, popcorn and chocolate?

Glancing up and down the checkout aisle Chelsea tried to spot a gap. She laughed at herself as she headed toward one, making mental note of how many shoppers were actually in the store.

In checkout 3 and 4 there were 2, and in aisles 5, 6 and 7, there were no customers, and checkout attendant 6 looked as though he had passed out with his face on the conveyor belt. Assistant number 7 hand his finger up his nose and assistant 5 was staring into space, her head held in one hand and her hand fingering the plastic bags hanging from the rack.

Believing the latter would probably help her more than the other two, who were obviously so busy, she headed toward 5, lugging her shopping trolley after her.

A gust of wind passed her as she started forward and she saw the flying shape of a gentleman stumble forward before finally lurching to a halt in the aisle she was heading for. A scowl tweaked at the side of her mouth and she felt her blood begin to boil.

Three fucking checkouts free and this asshole had to come riding along into the one she was headed to. It was typical. And when he looked up, a small apology on his face, she realised it was the toilet roll guy and felt her anger turn to angry embarrassment. Not only was he content with publicly embarrassing her, he was now trying to steal her checkout.

With determination she headed towards checkout 5 and slammed her trolley into the side, waiting for some sort of response.

The Assistant looked slightly comatose and the toilet roll guy didn’t seem to be paying any attention.

Chelsea felt a tap on her shoulder. “There’s a checkout over here that’s free madam.” A voice said, and without turning Chelsea smiled and looked dead at the toilet roll man in front of her.

“That’s ok, I’m fine here.”

“But,” the voice said, “there’s no queue over here madam.”

Chelsea shrugged, continuing to look at the toilet roll man, trying to bore into his head, or get some sort of reaction.

“I’m ok here, honestly.”

The voice seemed to be slightly awed by the prospect of a customer actually wanting to wait in a queue, and became more persistent.

“You won’t have to wait over here madam, it’s not a problem, it’s already open…”

Chelsea turned around with a sardonic smile and stared directly at the puny little teenager that stood cowering under her wrath.

“I said I’m fine here. If I wanted to go straight through do you think I’d still be here? I’m trying to make a point and how can I make it if you’re stood here embarrassing me and making me look stupid?”

The teenager began to quail and his hands began shaking as he ran his hand through his greasy hair.

“So beat it!” Chelsea said, and watched as he scampered off, glancing back with almost fright.

Turning back around Chelsea was astonished to see that the toilet roll man was gone, and she felt embarrassment well up within her again as she looked at the checkout assistant, mouth open and glazed eyes suddenly anxious.

“Some people,” Chelsea muttered as she began to fill her bags, suddenly tired.

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Slurping the last dregs of her pot noodle Chelsea sat back in the squishy armchair and sighed, hurling the empty contained into the bin by the sofa.

The television played to itself and she closed her eyes. Another day at work had come and gone, and now all she could think about was relaxing, and resting her head for another night.

It seemed that her life was becoming as monotonous as hell ever since she had taken the job in the finance section of the BBC. It was so irritating, all day looking at figures, working them out, sending out graphs and files of figures to programme planners, bosses and directors, producers and artists. When her friend Janet had said that there was a job going at the BBC this wasn’t what she had had in mind, particularly as there were a lot of exciting projects being brought into the BBC all the time.

Chelsea grimaced. Her first four weeks had come and gone in a flash, and now she was treated pretty much as furniture. But her computer screen had begun to stab her eyes when she looked at it, and the organised chaos that accompanied her job was beginning to really piss her off. It was pushing paper, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day. She could go on, but the prospect was too grim to even contemplate.

Shifting in her chair her eyes flickered open and she sighed. The News had just finished, and now a new show was flitting it’s way onto her screen.

She opened her mouth as she saw a bedraggled and battered character emerge from the sea and crawl up the beach.

Grabbing the remote she turned the volume up and watched in awe as the character began to lurch and then finally dropped to his knees.

“It’s.”

Chelsea blinked as the title music began to play and she felt a small laugh escape her lips. What the hell was this?

She grabbed her TV schedule and looked it over.

“New comedy Monty Python’s Flying Circus is brought to you by Michael Palin, Eric Idle, John Cleese, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman and Terry Gilliam.”

Chelsea blinked again. “Nothing else?” she asked the empty flat and glanced up at the screen again.

Flowers were popping out of people’s heads, a man’s face was stretched, naked women were flying on trains across her screen. Chelsea couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She recognised the music as Sousa’s Liberty Bell March, one of her ex boyfriend’s had been in a regimental band and had played it as a classic Army tune. Gaping at the TV set now Chelsea couldn’t imagine it ever being played again, especially not with the kind of comedy it was going to be associated with at any rate.

The music finished and suddenly she recognised John Cleese, a comedian she’d spotted from other shows like the Frost Report, and he was dressed up as Mozart. There were Pigs, and shootings, and Italian lessons, and 2 sheds Jackson and before Chelsea knew it she was laughing outright.

With a start she caught a glimpse of one of the comedians. She blinked again and realised that she had seen that face only that evening, in the supermarket, telling her she had toilet roll stuck to her leg. Feeling the embarrassment creep up into her face again it was quickly put aside by the hilarious antics this man was getting up to. Yet there was no way of telling what his name was.

And then the programme had ended. Watching the credits scroll upwards she tried to work out who was who, but the only one she knew was John Cleese. The other names didn’t mean a thing to her, and she couldn’t possibly find out, not at this hour anyway.

Glancing around her flat as if suddenly realising she was by herself again, Chelsea smiled and made a mental note to watch it again the following week. She hadn’t laughed so hard in months, probably even years! Well actually, that was lying because she had laughed just the other week when one of the Executive Financiers fell down a flight of steps. And anyway, that toilet roll man was so cute, and she had been really harsh earlier in the shop, and had let her hatred for shopping take a hold of her senses. Perhaps she’d see him around the BBC building, perhaps there was a way she could hunt him out. Switching off the TV Chelsea set about planning mentally what she was going to do the next day to find the mysterious toilet roll man.

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Chelsea looked up from her stack of write-off papers and grimaced as Harold stamped down the corridor towards the office, and she quickly glanced around, hoping the floor would swallow her up so she wouldn’t have to deal with Kinky King. Not only did Harold King have a reputation as a bit of a girl groper, he also had seriously bad breath and liked to spit at people as far away as ten metres, just in case they hadn’t showered that very morning.

Gripping the desk she swung her wheely chair out from underneath her and threw herself under her desk, glad that there was no one else there to see what she had done in a vain attempt to allude the Kinky King. His thunder steps stopped outside of the door and it swung open, jangling on it’s hinges and causing the desks of Chelsea’s co-workers to bounce.

“Miss Marsh!” Harold boomed as he stared into the office. He could’ve sworn she’d been here just five minutes ago when he had strolled past her office on the way to the Accountants office. He wanted serious discussions with her about the charts on the Wildlife show she’d handed in.

“Miss Marsh!” he shouted again and Chelsea quivered under the desk. She really didn’t want to have to explain why she’d written the entire Wildlife graphs in pink pen, nor did she want to talk about why she was under her desk with no excuse for being there. And most of all, she didn’t want Kinky King touching her arse or looking down her top, or spitting in her eye or putting his hand on her back.

She heard footsteps approach and squeezed her eyes shut, reminded suddenly of hiding from the bully at school and being found all scrunched up in a toy box she had managed to squeeze herself into. Chelsea pushed herself as close to the back of her desk as possible and prayed he wouldn’t come around.

Instead she heard heavy breathing and that wheezy noise of someone with too much catarrh, and then she thought she could see his foot, and he was leaning his weight onto the desk. She heard a click and then held her breath as he made to come around the desk. And then he stepped away and stamped back out of the office, leaving a smell of stale water and cigarette behind him.

Chelsea peered up and over her desk and glanced around for signs of intruders. When she thought the coast was clear she looked up and saw the note scribbled on her desk pad.

“Please see me ASAP – need to discuss reports. Harold.”

Chelsea picked up the paper with one finger and screwed it up, tossing it nonchalantly into the waste paper bin, as though the last fifteen minutes under her desk had been spent some other way other than in fear.

The door burst open and there was her demon. Harold, who had crept back around the corner suspicious that he was being ignored, stared angrily at Chelsea, who had thrown the piece of paper in the bin just as he had appeared at the glass.

“Well Miss Marsh, we see what you truly think about your job don’t we?”

Chelsea felt her insides begin to churn and she backed against her desk. There was no one here, it was lunchtime and the offices around her were more or less deserted. She was going to get the bollocking of a lifetime with no one to save her.

“I’m sorry sir. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Harold looked incredulous. “I saw you throw my note in the bin, seconds after I wrote it in this very office!” he threw his arms in the air. “Where you were HIDING!”

Chelsea tried to compose herself but she knew she wouldn’t be able to. There are certain men in life that had that air of “no one in the world can touch me so you can fight but never be victorious” about him, and it made Chelsea more angry than afraid of him. It frustrated her to tears sometimes, and although she would never let him see her cry, she was shaking with fury that he mistook as fear.

“I wasn’t hiding sir.”

Harold gaped. “I saw your foot!”

Chelsea cocked her head. “My foot?”

Harold nodded.

“Oh my foot! I’m sorry I thought you said a goat.”

Harold’s jaw dropped and he looked disbelievingly at her. “What?”

“I thought you said a goat. I thought it a bit odd that you started talking about a goat, especially here in the office! Well yes if it was my foot then I must’ve been here.”

Harold spluttered. “Precisely. So why were you hiding from me?”

Chelsea looked down at her desk, searching for something to say. “I wasn’t.”

“You weren’t? What were you doing then?”

Her eyes scanned the desk and her eyes caught her pen pot. “I was looking for my pen.”

“Your pen?”

“Yessir!”

“Well why didn’t you present yourself when I called you?”

“I didn’t want you to think I was hiding from you.”

Harold’s face took on a strange shade of red as Chelsea looked up innocently.

“You didn’t want me to think you were hiding so you hid from me?”

Chelsea pretended to think about it and then nodded, smiling as naturally as she could force.

Harold’s face grew a deeper and deeper red until he coughed and then turned about and walked out of the office. Before he left down the corridor he turned back and pointed at her.

“We will discuss the report later. You haven’t heard the last of this Miss Marsh!”

And with that he stormed off down the corridor, leaving Chelsea to breathe out and try and control her shaking. She sat back on her desk, pushing pens and paper off it as she did so and she closed her eyes, pressing her hands together in front of her face and praying thanks to the Lord for getting her out of that one for now.

A small cough in the doorway roused her and she managed to peel her eyelids apart and get a hold of herself before looking at the new intruder on her lunchtime privacy.

Chelsea thought she recognised him from somewhere and as he entered the office her mind flashed up an image she couldn’t quite place.

He approached her desk as she returned to the seat behind it and looked up at him, trying desperately in her mind to work out who the hell he was and why she recognised him. Perhaps the incident with Kinky King had haddled her brain and she was now a psychotic who was responsible for the money spending of the BBC. She laughed inwardly. The BBC may as well have a lunatic finance section to accompany the barmy programming section.

She looked over the man stood awkwardly at her desk. Tallish, wavy shoulder length hair, green eyes, cheeky looking face, thin, in his early twenties by the looks of it. She recognised him from somewhere. He looked down at her as she stared at him before coughing and causing her to jump.

“Excuse me I’m looking for the Finance Section.” He said, his voice carrying a sharpness about it that cut right through her thoughts and caused her to sit up.

“Well you’ve found it, although I might not be able to help.” Chelsea waved her arms around. “There’s only me and I’m just a nobody graph maker.”

The man smiled gently. “Not the greatest job huh?”

Chelsea sat back in her chair and motioned for him to grab one himself. “When my friend said there was a job going at the BBC I didn’t have pen-pusher in mind.”

The man grinned. “Something a bit more upmarket perhaps?”

Chelsea smiled, feeling at ease with this stranger and she leant her elbows on the edge of her desk. “Well I think the station of toilet cleaner was filled at the time, so they put me on the next rung down.”

The man laughed and Chelsea joined him, before motioning to the paper he was holding in his hands.

“Is that bundle of joy for me?”

He shrugged. “Depends whether you can help me or not.”

Chelsea motioned for him to give her the paper and he handed it to her. She looked it over and smiled to herself. Wow, another grant request. She scanned the reasons for the requests and was about to hand it back saying she wasn’t part of the grant request scheme when something caught her eye.

The title of the page swam into her view and Chelsea flicked the papers over in her hands, and grinned as she saw what she thought she had spotted. Monty Python’s Flying Circus stared up at her and she smiled wholeheartedly, knowing that she would grant this request even if it meant losing her job.

She looked up at the man and suddenly his face was clearly familiar from the previous night. He was one of the performers she didn’t recognise, and as she smiled happily into his face he smiled back slightly awkwardly.

“So you’re one of the Pythons?” she asked.

He nodded and held out his hand. “Eric Idle.”

She took it and shook it. “Chelsea Marsh.” She said and laughed gently. “I thought the show last night was fabulous. Real genius.”

Eric looked slightly incredulous. “You do?”

Chelsea nodded. “Yeah, I was laughing so hard.”

He seemed consumed with incredulity and she smiled honestly at him. “I can’t wait for the next installment.”

He didn’t seem to know what to say as she handed him the finance grant and as she waved him goodbye he slipped out of the office with a look of shock still caressing his cheeks.

Glancing at the clock as she headed towards the coffee machine Chelsea realised that she was going to be late for an appointment with the BBC 2 researcher and, picking up her small bag, skipped happily out of the office.







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