Retail makes me need therapy
Am I a Victorian ghost? A curmudgeonly Martian? A huge bitch? Yes. Anyway.
Recently, I took a trip into town with my mother in order to run errands, eat carbs, and make cruel but fair observations about my fellow shoppers, as we do from time to time. The “town” is technically a small city, but the sort where you could traverse the city centre on foot in approximately ten minutes.
Were it not for the several decades of “studentification” thanks to not one, but two, institutes of higher indoctrination/learning, it would be a lovely little backwater, full of collars pulled up around ears and people glancing shiftily at anyone they didn’t recognise. As it is, the backwater is somewhat stirred up here and there by groups of green-haired middle-class types occasionally putting on some sort of University-sponsored Community Initiative/Fun Day/Pride Parade. This group, which catches on its periphery the larger group of well-to-do, hemp-wearing liberals who still basically want a ”normal” life, just with added vegetarianism, maintains a strong “progressive/liberal” cache in the city, one which is at odds with the rest of the area’s working-class rural vibe.
And now, as is so inevitable when the “progressive/liberal” squad begins to feel well-rooted, the first obnoxious fake-victimhood stickers have appeared.
Not content with the hospital flying their flag, or the feverish monthslong display of flags and stickers by just about every business in town each year, or the weekend of ‘festivities’ (men in gimp masks hanging out with children in “family friendly” board game marquees, anyone?), some plucky genocide-sufferer has placed a “TRANS RIGHTS NOW” and a progress pride flag with the words “Rebel. Revolt.” printed over it on a town centre sign. One suspects by the height at which the sticker has been placed that this is somebody with she/her pronouns and a five-o’clock shadow.
I remember the county police’s horrified reaction to a sticker in the same town placed by somebody on the other side of the table (it was on Twitter, some time ago, and I don’t use that hellish site any more, so I have no evidence for you. Please accept my memory instead of a sticker clearly stating that “transwomen are men”, and the Lancashire Police Twitter account declaring this to be “not OK”). With this in mind, I presume the local force will be dispatched with a soapy sponge and a little scrapey thing any day now. I do hope so, my sense of identity is crumbling away as we speak. What a hate crime. Woe is me.
Ugly graffiti by permanent victims aside, my first foray into town in over a month leaves me feeling somewhat confused by new fashions, although being a Victorian ghost trapped in the body of a Millenial woman, I am well versed in such a sensation. We head into ‘Boots’, a high-street chemist/drug-store/make-up/lazy Christmas gift shop for any non-Brits reading this. The mirrors are designed to shock and appal, of course. Sometimes the shop assistants merely remove the glass from one and stand behind with latex demon masks in an effort to trick us into buying more make-up. I’ve never been able to prove this, of course, but I remain vigilant against their efforts.
By now, I am used to keeping my eyes low in order to shield them from both the unwanted reflections and from the glaring neon lights, and generally I ignore the make-up, relying on my female relatives to fling the odd mascara at me each birthday and Christmas.
Make-up unfortunately makes my face itch, and I’ve never quite got the hang of it; I usually manage to emphasise my worst features, which is to say, most of them. I am naturally taken aback to glance up and see an unfamiliar ad campaign on the side of one of the cosmetic stands. A slogan I have never heard before seems to be at first a trick of the flickering lights, too bizarre to possibly be true.
“Conceal, bake, snatch.”
I am lost in the confusion of verbs, transfixed by the model’s dayglo perma-tan. Is that the bake? A healthy ochre layer on previously cream-to-beige skin? I understand “conceal”, I even use some concealer from time to time, but bake? Snatch? Are these used as verbs? Lord, I hope they’re verbs, but what am I supposed to snatch, and how does a tiny tube of goo help me in this goal? I forego the pleasure of asking one of the headset-wearing ladies buzzing around me like busy flies and resign myself to never knowing the meaning of the instruction. Perhaps the real snatch was the friends we made along the way.
My ignorance on the topic of make-up firmly accepted, I make my way to one of the few clothes shops still in town, with the aim of buying a pair of jeans. Moving through the rails, I pick up an armful of likely sorts, all with delightfully creative names. Not being a fashionista, I decide first to see if I could find a simple sense of belonging and affirmation in the so-called “mom” jeans, which I suppose must sound more exciting to marketeer ears than the homely, indigenous equivalent: “mum” jeans. Perhaps “mum” jeans are too busy being covered in baked beans and hob-nob crumbs to be appealing to the discerning customer? Either way, in seeking the perfect fit for a “mom”, I find only “gunt”. Thankfully, the suddenly present “gunt” appears to be a creation of the ridiculously long and stiff zip. That would be one for the “no” pile, then. As out of touch as I’m sure I am, I’m quite certain that “make my belly look both fatter and longer” is not what I should aim for this season.
I try the “lift, shape, sculpt” jeans. They lift, shape, and sculpt me into a woman wearing slightly more expensive jeans. My rear remains unchanged, unmoved as it is by both the manufacturer’s claims and the dazzling array of additional support seams that give the impression of some sort of denim bondage swing.
Casting a harsh and critical eye over myself, I am reminded of the most awful truism shared by my mother: “You can always tell when a woman has had a child, Georgia. Her bottom drops.” She has since backpedalled on this one, claiming that she only heard it from someone else, and besides, obviously your bottom hasn’t dropped Georgia, it’s just something that happens to other women! You look lovely! Fancy a hobnob? I am spurred on to inflict ever more squats on myself, beginning the minute I return home that day. The kettle is boiling? Squat. Reaching for my child’s toy? LUNGE. With these additional seven-and-a-half squats per day, I should soon have the rear of a lesser-known Kardashian kousin cousin.
Coming into town has long been a fortnightly or so tradition, but with massively increased parking charges of late, I’ve been coming less and less. That, and I inevitably end up spending money that I shouldn’t spend eating lovely food because I have no willpower (and I must make sure I can fill the gunt space in my new jeans). I suspect these excursions will decrease in the near future, and that we won’t be alone in staying away, as the council has plans to build houses on the two main car parks in the city centre. They are the largest and closest car parks to town, and naturally the two that I always use. I have never seen them less than half full, even on weekdays.
I have only recently become aware that the plans are underway, apparently already decided upon after fruitless counterarguments by locals. I respect the need for housing. I am in favour of building more housing. I understand the problems with building on greenbelt, particularly as my own village is in the process of being forcibly doubled in size by dint of turning the surrounding fields into estates. However, preventing people from coming into town by removing so much parking seems to me to be likely to lead to a hollowing out of the already dwindling shops and therefore a reduction in the allure of the town centre itself. But it’s ok, the council (permanently left-wing, thanks to studentification!) has decreed that we can all cycle or bus our way into town.
Cars are icky, you know. They’re not one of the greatest sources of liberation for the ordinary person, of course not. Just horrible, mean, road-hogging planet-killers. Funnily enough, I don’t plan to transport my toddler, his pram and changing bag, plus any bags of shopping on bicycle. I also don’t intend to do the same on a crammed and sweaty bus with likely no available seats, and in which I have to empty the pram of all bags and fold it up while maintaining control of my leggy little whirling dervish child. I know plenty of mothers do it, but only because they have to, or are insane. I resent the local councillors demanding that I make my life that bit harder and more miserable, and I will not bow to their requests. Of course, in their world, everybody desperately wants to save the planet, and also lives in the suburbs a fifteen-minute walk away from the city centre.
My casual insults aside, the councils have an insanely difficult job to do. There is no feasible way to juggle the competing needs of all their people and particularly not with the budgets they have. I accept this. But I worry about what we’re sleepwalking into, in my local city and in plenty of others too. I know I am essentially a curmudgeonly Martian vaguely horrified by most things, but I don’t think I am entirely unfair in my concerns. Our lives would be poorer without decent, vibrant, welcoming town and city centres. I sincerely hope that we can find ways to navigate the various needs and desires of everybody who uses them or lives in them, and that what seems to me to be a move in my own city towards prioritising those of a small group of middle-class progressives does not last long.
Many chuckles and somber nods of agreement in this description of your foray into "village life" and the shopping experience that leaves one addled, aggravated, feeling like an alien and often depressed. I'm wearing clothing that is at least 10 years old as fashion-who-cares mindset arrived long ago. I also seldom shop in person partly because of vanity. I haven't figured it out yet, but the mirrors in women's shops are a horror show when I catch a glimpse of myself in them, yet at home my mirrors present an absolute doll🤣 I guess my home mirrors have been trained well to coddle my mind's eye of how I think I look. Maybe I accidentally have possession of the mirror brand the witch in Snow White always consulted?
Oh yeah, here in my university town, bike lanes are installed everywhere, and while being installed close streets or take them down to one lane. A major artery near my home has bike lanes on both sides of the thoroughfare and in my travels I may at best see a lane being used once or twice a week with one sole biker. But of course only the minority (of anything) requires slavish attention to their/its needs.
I live in another city which is probably quite a bit bigger than yours. Yet it has the same dynamic. Low emission zones, reduced parking and lectures about cycling. It too is being studentified to the extent grown ups are moving out. I'm one of them and I'm taking my tax dollars with me. Do they think the students, vape shops and Turkish barbers are going to pay for all the bike lanes they want to build?
I think what we are witnessing is not councils desperately trying to keep everyone happy as you suggest. I think this is what socialism looks like. Stuff is done on the whim of those in favour. Where you are that is a transitory student population who don't care if it is a wasteland five years from now. Plus bored council workers desperate to matter, so they imagine they are saving the planet while they destroy their revenue base.
How low can Britain go?