So the rain comes a-pourin’ down.
Lightning crashing, hail even decides to be an event on London’s evening schedule tonight.
Facebook fan-group worthy. (Become a fan of ‘Summer Showersz!!’)
Before this intense event, I was on my way to Sainsbury’s with my sister, Jules. She had been called by her boss to do a last-minute shopping for the pub she works at.
Now I’m thinking “This should be a really simple thing. Onions, cheap beef burgers, steaks, mayonnaise, chips. What else could a pub possibly need for their kitchen?”
As it turns out, the shopping list was long. I couldn’t really read it, because some of the things we had to buy had been written on top of something else, so that everything could fit on the A4 paper.
We make a quick stop at M&S (teehee, we all know what only XXX minds think when they read that..) to buy some premium Highland Lochmuir potatoes and steaks lavished with peppercorn butter (£5.50 a piece).
As we (i.e I) am bogged down heavily by the ‘small’ M&S shopping, I am left, with the shopping, to park outside the Sainsbury’s (park my booty, not a car) as Jules runs into the Sainsburys (I say run…).
Typically, I am hit with the sensation of the game that everyone around me is playing with each other.
It’s called the Eye-Aversion Game. People play it alot here. It’s a national thing. Involving rules, prizes, media coverage.
In the Eye-Aversion Game, the rules are simple.
1) Do not glance/look/stare in the vague, general direction of ANYONE.
(looking them in the eye/nipples/cleavage/thigh
s is an absolute no-no.)
2) {For men:} Do not look up when a (hot) girl is passing.
(if you have a girlfriend, you’d better remark on how she walks/looks like a man FAST.)
3) {For women:} Look up when a (hot) guy is passing.
(if you have a boyfriend, it will make him ragingly jealous. but he won’t be able to say anything because he’s totally not in love with you just yet, man. win-win.)
4) If something out of the ordinary happens, do not show even the slightest reaction (like a cringe/stifled laughter)
(especially when it involves someone ingloriously slipping and falling ungracefully, possibly right in front of you).
5) NEVER. EVER. EVER talk to someone you don’t know or have never met.
(even if you have seen them around a few times and spoke to them while roaring drunk in that pub over there. absolutely no exceptions.)
A few hundred moons and 7 cigarettes later, Jules emerges from Sainsburys with a trolley full of shopping. The weather had already progressed from light spizzle to bad-premonition-for-our-plans rain.
We shoppers all thought nothing of it.
After all, there was so many of us, possibly 76+ of us, with mountains of shopping and children to cook dinner for, boyfriends to cook dinner for and maybe an entire family of 12 to open cans of meatballs for.
So it was obviously just a quick summer spizzle.
Obviously. Right?
Naught 4 minutes later, it was LITERALLY pissing down.
Now, I hate the term ‘pissing down’ as much as the next guy with a brain but I’m afraid there is no other term to describe just how hard and heavily it was pouring.
Gushing down would sound nice but it makes one think of someone crying after a break-up. Break-ups, good times lol.
So let’s stay on the pubspeak pogostick for the time being.
Eventually the people who had been inside the Sainsburys on what had promised to be a pretty normal evening for all, were gathered outside, waiting with trolleys and anxious faces. Some were inside, clearly to avoid the atmospheric quality of rain. Clearly.
These were the people with suits and rolexes. Ironically the people with small children were all outside.
There were heartwarming fathers with 4 delightful, M&S-fed, football-team-clad children who decided to dash into the rain. All together. Squealing excitedly with British accents.
How heartwarming is that?
A few other people decided to dash out into the rain. They could have been heartwarming too, if they hadn’t been dared to do it, or 9 years old.
So, yes… I was dared to run out into the rain. In that corny way, where you dare the other person to dare you to do something reckless and wild. As soon as Jules’ sighed “Yes, go on..” to my self-dare, I ran out into the pissing rain and became soaked within a matter of villiseconds.
It evolved into an SA wet t-shirt party moment for me. (All SA people, I have two words and a symbol for you: Shannon & Shane.)
So who else thinks that Shannon & Shane have totally earned their ‘&’ instead of a plain old ‘and’?
They’re like Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen, Marco & Cephas, Seth & (insert token Van Ouuttsishrorrrn brother), Ben & Jesse, Phil Traas & GN, Tiago & Angie, Alisa & admittedly hot photos.
I could go on.
GBY all!
So, back on topic here.
Panic was starting to slowly seep through the crowds of stranded shoppers. If you were just passing by, (like the studly, hardcore young men who were totally fuckin’ not bothered by some little bit of fuckin’ water, like shit, just strollin’ through here, ladies) you would have thought it was Independence Day 2 being filmed at the Sainsburys, judging by people’s faces.
Posh 40 somethings were panicking. Lightly fixing their permed hair, they repeatedly called their exasperated, handsomely rich husbands to va va voom their way towards the Sainsburys with their sleek car.
Young couples bickered, clearly aroused. The see-throughness that pervaded the general clothing of all involved was hard to ignore.
Most importantly, the Eye-Aversion game was beginning to crack.
Hot boyfriends were looking at girls that were not their girlfriend. Looking at their long, rain-spattered, perfectly fake-tanned legs. My legs were not fake-tanned, but sun-tanned and were also looked at alot.
Old, single men were striking up conversations with old, single women. They didn’t last very long, obviously. One can break the Eye-Aversion game rules but it doesn’t usually go on for more than 5 minutes. Because then it changes from a quick, friendly, bonding-over-the-situation chat, to a man accosting a woman he doesn’t know from Adam.
Jules and me were starting to slightly enjoy the situation. Our voices rang out as we joked about the people around us and the stereotypes they all fit neatly into. The couples, the old people, the Eye-Aversion game, the posh 40 somethings, the fun young people with bright, orange plastic bags tied around their heads.
Eventually Jules’ ride arrived; a friend who was going to drive her and the mass amount of shopping to the pub. Running out to the car, my overall sogginess was completed to the fullest extent.
I dashed ahead, leaving Jules behind. I was holding alot of things, so I held them up in protest and as proof of my inability to help her. She screamed at me to come to her aid, but then the man came out of the car and held an umbrella over her head. It was all gonna be okay in the end.
I half ran, half leaped home, barefoot.
When I got home, I removed my clothing and placed everything I’d had on my person as far away from other people’s laptops as possible.
Then I had a light lunch and did some other things later on.
I Love London.
The Circularity of Cream Fluff 