A shopkeeper moved up and down the narrow aisle of pots, pans, staplers, feather dusters and doormats. A hungover guy in his late twenties stood before an array of plastic goods and scanned each shelf from left to right, looking very lost.
Frustrated that he couldn’t find what he wanted, the guy looked towards the shopkeeper for attention. He was ignored and walked passed three times until he spoke up.
‘Excuse me. Do you have any, um, dish drainer things?’ he asked. The shopkeeper looked up and down the shelves, then gestured for the guy to follow him around the corner.
‘Oh, no. Sorry, I meant for washing up.’ explained the guy who’d been pointed towards a stack of silver sieves. The shopkeeper looked around a little more and walked the guy around a few other customers to the end of another aisle.
‘Kind of… What I’m after is kept in the kitchen, but it’s got bigger holes in and is longer. It holds your clean dishes.’ said the guy, struggling to describe what he meant as he faced a bargain bucket of colanders. The shopkeeper gave a knowing grin.
Led once more by the shopkeeper, the guy walked to a different section of the shop where his guide turned to face him with a proud, task fulfilling nod towards the top shelf. His neck clicked as he raised his head to take a look up, at a row of big dish washer machine draws.
‘I’m really sorry. I don’t have a dish washer. I clean the dishes and cutlery up myself, then put them on this tray… a stand thing with holes so that the water drips off as they dry. This happens in the kitchen after I’ve cooked and eaten dinner.’ said the guy, gesticulating each point of his description, from a spoon stirring in a saucepan of food to a plate washing motion.
The shopkeeper lowered his head away from the top shelf of dish washer draws and thought to himself whilst gazing at his feet in a disappointed, rejected manner. After a few seconds he looked up quickly towards the guy with determination in his eyes that suggested he finally knew what was wanted and where in the shop it was.
The guy was now sweating out the previous night’s cocktails, flustered but focused not to waste his day off work being unproductive and ignoring a to-do list of house chores. The shopkeeper knelt down and stood up holding a large plastic basket of holes, only more suited to carrying laundry with than filing a dinner party’s sink load of cleaned props across.
The shopkeeper and guy looked at each other, both fatigued and smiling at their loss of words and resolve. The shopkeeper gave a warm, apologetic shrug of the shoulders as the guy gave a nod of thanks for his efforts. The guy stepped out into the busy, wet street and headed home to order the drainer online.