The Little Old Lady & the Honking Goose

Notes from my iPhone

I’ve loved shopping second hand for as long as I can remember. And I found this piece of writing stashed neatly in the notes section of my phone. It made me laugh, as so many of my random notes do, and I wanted to share it with you.

My first secondhand purchase was when I was 8 years old. There was a little charity shop on the end of a row of convenience stores in a residential street: Bell Lane. In fact, it might still be there. There was the newsagents, the dentist, the hardware store, and the Chinese takeaway. The latter was owned by Derek the dickhead's parents. He was the ‘boyfriend’ of a mousy girl who had taken quite a dislike to me at school, so I didn’t often loiter around these parts unless I was in desperate need of a roll of cherry drops, or a Garfield magazine.

On this particular occasion I was with my grandmother. Waiting probably for my siblings to finish at the dentist. Or maybe it was for my mother as she ticked off Derek for spinning an ink roller glistening with black paint down the back of my new school dress for no apparent reason. 

Grandma said ‘Pick something you like from that 80p rack’ and I recall pulling out a soft, jersey blouse in a nice shade of cream with a peachy paisley scarf stitched into the neckline, with three-quarter-length sleeves and pearly buttons. You could knot the scarf at the neck. I’ve always been partial to a bow, so it was a done deal. 

God knows why, but my mother had recently lopped my glowing golden bob into a feathery, fluffy mullet and I had developed a profound spurt of puppy fat around my middle. What with a shirt fit for a little old lady stretched over my plump, I looked a real sore thumb in my small town, conservative suburbia where it was very much ‘fit in, or face doom.’

My mother gently queried the choice, while my sister branded me an outright loser, and yet I was defiant that I was going to wear it. I would cruise around in it on the next charity shop purchase: a dark red, rusty fold-up bike whose brakes announced my arrival with a loud wail, and whose connector had snapped off so that it could (and oh, it would) fold me in half mid-cycle in front of all the kids on the cul-de-sac. 

I wobbled into 1994, which was not a great year for me. My parents had split in quite spectacular style, my ‘friends’ had followed the charge of Derek the dickhead and his mousy girl, and my only remaining friend - Ollie the cat - had met her untimely end by the wheels of a rusty Peugeot 106. All this and I looked like a plump old Sue with scabby knees, a paisley bow tied round my neck, riding around on a disgruntled, honking red goose.

I took to climbing trees in the local park and losing myself in books. The bike would get stolen again and again, and I could hear her cries in distant streets, but I always found her discarded down some alley or another. Eventually, I made new friends. I picked myself up and dusted myself off. I let my hair grow back. But I did not consider once not wearing that shirt, or not riding that ridiculous bike, however many times I threw it into the garage in despair, or disentangled myself from its hideous snare. Or until someone bought me a new one. They were both my choices that I made of my own young will, and I’d like to think I’m all the stronger for them. Albeit with much better hair.

What about you? I’d love to know what your first charity shop purchase was. Or , better yet, the first note that you come across on your phone that makes you laugh?