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So

I went shopping.

I looked around my house and had everything I needed, so I decided I needed to go shopping.

I hit the market. A cacophony of sounds and voices attend me. What do you want, they chant.

Oh this and that and that, I reply cheerfully, confused and yet blissfully unaware.

My eyes alight upon a pair of boots. They are nude coloured, knee length stilettos. I can’t imagine where I’d wear them to. I own a pair of boots I’ve never worn; I couldn’t wear knee length boots; I am not crazy about nude except on a person; and they don’t fit quite right, but, I buy them, because, you know, you never know.

I see these precious hangers. They are such a shade of pink as I cannot describe. So lustrous and pale and yet shining with this inner luminescence. So I buy them. I don’t have space in my wardrobe for hangers so I suppose I will have to throw away the other ones. They are not old, but you never know, they could age or break or sag in the middle in the next few days, then what would I do?

I buy a few mugs. They look really nice, a rare shade of purple – mauve I think it is. We have about five mugs, and there are just three of us. We therefore need more mugs, I mean, what if all of our lovers visited at once, and we all wanted to have tea. Usually, I want to have tea and coffee at the same time. That would mean a total of seven mugs required. Moreover, I left my boy washing up in the kitchen. Something tells me he’s going to break every single mug before I get home. So I buy seven mugs.

Just. In. Case.

I happen upon these booties and remember that my friend is getting married in the summer, and although she has told me she will not get pregnant for at least the first two years after, I buy the booties for her baby because you never know.

A bright coloured building catches my eye and a cursory glance tells me that it houses a paint distributor. I walk in and I am spoiled for choice. Now, the painter was by last week and I changed the paint on my room walls from royal blue to mulberry. I am crazy about this mulberry paint, but what if I got bored and my painter was unable to find anything I liked when I wanted to repaint in maybe say a year? Since I cannot decide between pumpkin colour and tangerine, I buy both.

I decide to leave the market before I hurt myself too much.

At the gate, I see my Landlady just leaving and I drop on my knees and kiss her dusty feet. She seems taken aback but quickly composes herself and dons a haughty expression. I notice that her heels are cracked and the rest of the rims of her soles terribly callused, and I offer to take her for a pedicure. She tells me she is uncomfortable with salons so I tell her I will do it myself. She agrees.

Now that I have the opportunity, I ask her if I may send my daughter over to run errands for her whenever she needs something, even if it means the child missing school. What does it matter?

My Landlady looks at me oddly and tells me that really, all she requires of me and my family is that we pay our rent on time, and maintain the property, which, she says we have been doing commendably.

“Why don’t you like me?” I cry. “I try so hard to get your attention, to have a relationship with you. But you are always so aloof, so high up there. I just want to please you, be close to you.”

She looks at me weirdly; I am terribly discomfited by her attitude.

“Listen,” she says finally, “I built the house and you are paying for it and taking care of it which is all I require really. I don’t need all this adulation and…” she throws up her hands, exasperated. Snaps,  “I am not God!”

And I think to myself, what a weird thing to say.

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