Tuesday 4th January 2005
Today was crazy busy. There was nobody for the first hour, but then the Parents of Warminster all streamed into the Shop, in a panic because the Children of Warminster were going back to school the next day and they had no clothes. I was getting worried that I'd have to go without a lunch break, but then the Athenaem Ghosts turned up. It was the first, and will probably be the last time that I was glad to see them. Mad Martin tired to re-enact his death, which consisted of slipping on a banana skin and hitting his head on a hairdressers' washbasin, but this just made people laugh and did not have the desired effect. However, Brother Thomas' impression of Michael Jackson in the 'Thriller' video cleared the shop pretty damn quickly. The Ghosts then left, because Gory Georgina spotted a giant piece of Edam walking along High Street, which was a much more interesting prospect than simply pissing me off.
In the afternoon, Marlon the Oversized Mouse and Fairy Caroline dropped by the help me out. With a wave of her wand, Caroline caused all the untidy piles of uniform lying around the shop to be refolded and rehung, and she even organised the trouser rack for me. She knows how it drives me mad when the boys' trousers are out of colour, size and style order. Marlon stood beside the door, which kept the cats away. I hate those cursed cats. They can't resist the brightly coloured sweatshirts and the smell of the cellophane wrapping the daps and the PE shorts.
I eventually made �793.50. Paranoid about leaving so much money in the underground vault, I forced Grumpy to come and pick up the takings. He took them back to the Sandown Centre where the underground vault is actually guarded by a pride of purple lions, and a couple of gargoyles. I only have Sally the sabre-toothed tiger here. Whilst she is thoroughly vicious, she is also rather inclined towards sleeping far too much, and I didn't want to risk it.
Thursday 6th January
Still a pretty busy day: �289 in takings. A whole bunch of bats came into the shop and started trying to build a nest next to my depleted stock of Matravers sweatshirts. Fortunately, I remembered the lessons on bat repulsion that Gorgeous Stephen had given me on one of our insane Southwick pub-crawls, and I happened to have some carrots and bright pink paint in the cellar. I daubed the carrots in the paint and attached them to the end of the broom. Whilst singing 'My Favourite Things' from 'The Sound of Music' (bats hate Julie Andrews), I used the broom to chase the things from the shop.
Friday 7th January
The bus ride to work was rather interesting, today. As normal, I boarded the X5 from Wiltshire College Trowbridge and handed over �2.80 for a single to Warminster. The route was as normal all the way to the Station Approach in West bury, but then there was a road block because somebody's Roman racing chariot had collided with a lime green John Deere. Therefore, the driver opted to take a detour by turning left to go around the fishing lake. Captain Nemo had brought the Nautilus up to the surface and was waving at every single car in the huge queue of traffic, which was pretty cool.
At this point, the ground beneath us collapsed because it couldn't take the combined weight of the driver, the X5 and I. We fell rapidly through the surface layer, and landed with a thump in an underground cavern. From the bus headlamps, we could see that we had landed in a dark hall lined with ancient Egyptian sarcophagi. It appeared that we had ended up in the British Museum's secret West Country storage bunker, which I had always assumed to be an urban myth up until this morning. Fortunately, the bus driver was able to use his GPS to guide us out of the bunker, and we resurfaced in the Army base just outside town. At this point we hadn't actually lost any time, but then we had to spend an hour convincing the soldiers that we weren't Communist spies. The odds were stacked against us, me being Chinese and the driver speaking with a heavily accented eastern European English. We managed to get out, finally, when I called in Canon Liam and the Head Nun to vouch for us. Priests and holy little old ladies intimidate soldiers, so the tactic was wonderfully effective.
I eventually got into Warminster an hour-and-a-half late. I kept the Shop open through my lunch break, and I'll have to take a half-hour lunch tomorrow. Despite turning up so late, I still made �108.50.
Maybe I'll take the train in tomorrow.
Saturday 8th January
I did say 'maybe.'
I took the bus again, and I had an equally weird journey today. It being a Saturday, I was the only person on the X5 from the Council Offices to Warminster Market Place, so I only had the bus driver to keep me company. A January fog had descended upon Wiltshire, and as we drove along the deserted Hawkeridge road, a couple of Dementors emerged from the grey. I thought that I was imagining things, and wished that I hadn't had those Coco Pops for breakfast. The results of my experiments had been obtained, and I clearly couldn't take chocolate first thing in the morning. However, my conclusions were immediately disproved.
The bus driver whipped out his wand and created a Patronus, which sent the Dementors scurrying.
'You okay?' asked the driver.
'Yes, I'm fine, thank you,' I replied.
'Would you like some chocolate?'
'No, it's alright. I had Coco Pops for breakfast.'
We continued to converse as we drove on towards Warminster. The driver asked me not to tell anybody about what had happened. Not that he was worried about Muggles discovering that the wizarding world was very real and very active, but because he didn't want everybody thinking that I was a delusional lunatic, which was sweet of him. I asked him why he was a bus driver when he was clearly a pretty good wizard (his Patronus had been rather impressive), and he said simply that he enjoyed the company of Muggles. I think we must make him feel special or something.
'So,' I said, 'Is JK Rowling in on all this?'
'Hell, no,' he answered.
It turns out that the Harry Potter books are a wonderfully effective cover-up. The Ministry of Magic places its propaganda into Rowling's head subconsciously when she sleeps. When she awakes, she thinks that she's come up with the ideas in her books herself. There is, however, no Harry Potter, no Dursley family, and no Voldemort. The MoM just figured that they needed to have a vague story to give Rowling an excuse to write a series of books about wizards. I do like the idea that the characters are all named after workers at the MoM. The driver's sister-in-law is Minerva McGonagall. Apparently, she didn't take too well to being Maggie Smith, as she is Afro-Caribbean and speaks with a strong Antiguan accent. Parvati Patil was pretty pissed off as well, because in the books, Padma is her twin sister, but in real life, Padma is her mother's dog.
I was quite sad once we got to Warminster, as I could've talked to the driver all day, and I nearly bought a ticket to ride the entire route from Warminster to Bath and back again, but I couldn't face being late for work for yet another day. I can't wait until I get that driver again.
I took �139.50, with a total of �1474.50 for the week.
Monday 10th January
Sometimes people puzzle me. I stood waiting at the traffic lights at the intersection between Market Place and Weymouth Street for rather a long time, on my way to the shop from the bus stop. There was a girl who had arrived at the pelican crossing before me, and she was patiently waiting for the traffic to stop so that she could cross safely. However, it is the pedestrians' turn to cross after the traffic from Market Place has turned into Weymouth Street, but the little green man failed to light up and the traffic lining Weymouth Street began to turn into Market Place. At this point, I realised what had happened, and pressed the fall button on the traffic lights after giving the girl a dirty look. I don't know how she thought that she was going to cross, because those two roads are busy all day every day. Foolish creature.
I took �240.50, which was impressive, considering how many people had come into the shop last week. Lots of people did come in to buy Kingdown ties, though. I think somebody must have gone on a peanutting spree.
Tuesday 11th January
The Caravan came through Warminster today - a whole gorgeous procession of camels laden with wares from the East. A swarthy Persian man came into the shop trying to sell me perfume, incense and rugs. However, I happen to know that Dodgy Tony is flogging the exact same products for a third of the price out the back of his coffee shop in Trowbridge. Walking through town at the end of the day, everything still smelt of camel. I was fortunate in that my shop front was entirely unaffected, but the card shop was not so lucky. An angry-looking middle-aged woman stood outside shovelling camel shit into a bucket. A young man, perhaps her son, was vigorously cleaning the pavement in front of the shop - camel piss really stinks. As I walked away, I could hear the woman cursing the Caravan.
I made �92.50, several people fighting their way through the camels and opportunistic salespeople.
Thursday 13th January
A day of cultural stereotypes - this place must have every type under the sun. I made �172 from the following caricatures:
Friday 14th January
The old woman from the train last night was passing the shop, when I caught her eye, possibly because I was trying to get Sally to perform tricks. Upon recognising me, she stood in the shop window looking at me funny for over half-an-hour. She was really weirding me out, and I was rather relieved when she finally left. Ten minutes later and she was back, though. Back with an abbatoir hammer. She charged through the door and came to attack me.
The thing about Sally is that although she's too lazy to eprform tricks, she's never too lazy to protect me from psychotic little old ladies. Sally was wonderfully considerate. She picked all teh bones clean of meat, so all I ahd to do was dispose of a skeleton, as opposed to an entire corpse. I never got the chance to ask the old woman why she tried to kill me. Maybe it was because I'm Chinese.
The smell of human offal kept the customers away, and I ionly made �78. I had to go and buy a floral air freshener to try and get rid of the old woman's stench.
Continue to Part Two