Dear reader, I would hope that by now you've come to know me. We've been together for a while and I've spun you a few tales of my generally dull and boring life sprinkled with some words of wisdom here and there. So you should know that I don't generally let the mundane get the better of me.

Today, the relatively simple task of buying a pair of sneakers tipped me over the edge.

I detest shopping for anything that isn't fun. Take me to a hardware store or a Dick Smiths and I'm like a kid in lolly shop. On the other hand, put me in a grocery or a menswear store and things get ugly. Those places are not fun at all. They're practical and full of things you need to survive in polite society. Absolutely no fun at all and just when you think things can't get any worse, you encounter the frustrating lack of customer service.

I only wanted a pair of shoes in a size 10 and I couldn't find the ones I wanted on the rack so I went in search of the girl working in the store and when I found her, it took me three attempts to attract her attention as I walked towards her and a further attempt when I was standing in front of her - I'm 5ft 9, it's not like I'm hard to see. When she did notice me, her reaction was as if I had appeared out of nowhere and the conversation went something like this:

"Can I help you?" she asks in a distracted tone that indicates there are better things she could be doing than assisting me - bullfighting maybe?

"I was wondering if you have these shoes in a size 10." I reply cheerily pointing to the shoe I have tried on that is one size too big for me. "The size 11 is a bit too big."

"I don't know." She replies, exhaling heavily as if the mere effort of saying those words has used the equivalent energy of running a marathon. She then walks towards the back of the shop with me following and starts looking at shoe boxes lethargically, eventually pulling one off the top of the shelf and handing it to me.

"Here." She says and wanders off towards the front of the store, her job done for the moment. I cheerily thank her departing figure.

Look, I understand everyone hates having to work for a living. Who wouldn't want to sit around in their underwear watching TV all day or hitting the beach for a surf before long lunches and evening cocktails. I know a lot of jobs are menial and thankless and that people have to deal with awful people daily. It's a fact of life that people are bastards - bastards wrapped in bastards with a gooey centre of bastard actually - and they are going to make life a misery for you. The thing is, you gotta be better than they are.

Sure there are going to be people whose idea of shopping is to just torture the assistant for fun but those people are a minority and I'm not one of them.

Unfortunately, I have to go back tomorrow and return the sneakers because one of the laces loops wasn't put in properly. Hopefully, the lass will be in a better frame of mind.

Later days.