Wednesday, 7 December 2016

The Eyes Have It


“You’ve got beautiful big eyes,” said the sales assistant at the till. “Thank you,” I replied, “so has my grandson,” I quickly added. I was holding him up so that he could see all the shopping action first hand. The lady’s face fell. My little joke had fallen on stony ground [again]. She turned away in embarrassment and busied herself with another task.

My eyes are small, rather narrow, too close together and getting older. I tried to rescue the situation by chatting to the younger assistant, who was standing alongside her. Humour transplant required, I thought - and then, oh dear - Has she gone to get the store detective to quiz me for harassment? Did she push the panic button that alerts her superiors to an imminent robbery or assault? Am I on CCTV, infringing the “Be nice to our employees, or else” guidelines. It was only a joke. I promise I won’t do it again.

We went to another department in search of “My First Train Set.” I mumbled to my wife that she had better do the talking. I remembered the first train set that I played with, in the garden of my uncle’s house in Winchester in the early 1950s. I think it was Hornby O gauge and I invented a very ambitious layout for it, as you can see. Sorry about the eyes.

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