Shop Girl 'the Writer'

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I’ve taken the week off to work on a novel idea.

It’s a story with two voices.

I can’t tell you much more because I don’t know a lot more.

I set my alarm for 15 minutes and write from the point of view of my first character.

Blablablablablablabla

Beepbeep.

I set my alarm again and write from the point of view of my second character.

Blablablablablablabla

Beepbeep.

I do this over and over for two hours until lack of knowledge makes my fingers slow down and I start to wonder many things, like how easy would it be for a Cuban to move to Spain?

And, what might my Cuban Mum cook for dinner?

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When I was backpacking in Cuba I remember one of their specials was a plate of shredded pork, appetisingly named, ‘Old Clothes’ .

Velvet and I chewed our way through it and promised ourselves that before we left the island we’d splash out on a lobster.

Instead, after days of awful food in La Habana, we came across an Italian restaurant and, I’m ashamed to say, splashed out a lot of money on a plate of spaghetti and a bottle of wine (or two).

It might have been cheaper if we hadn’t been so merry and mistakenly left a massive tip; easily the biggest tip of my life.

Would my Cuban Mum have eaten ‘Old Clothes’ at home?

These and many more questions prompt me on a trip through Google.

Operation: Find out all about Cuba.

Why?

I’m not sure. I’m hoping it’ll make sense in the end.

I open a blog profile of a Cuban living in Barcelona.

Her English isn’t too good. She’s written,

Interests: Friends chips.

She’d registered to the site in 2006 so by now she might even be in a relation chip.

I try to send her a message but it asks me to ‘Sign In’ so I look elsewhere.

Writing for long periods of time disorientates me and as I create fictional lives I start to feel disconnected from my own.

This means it’s time to start looking for a job.

I’m still Shopgirling on a Saturday, which keeps me interacting with fellow humans and supposedly sane, although I have my doubts about the latter.

Last Saturday, I was in the window changing the display when I heard a cry of ‘”It’s open!”

A little girl came in all by herself.

She walked around the shop inspecting our lights and of course I felt like I had to say something.

“So, when you’re older and have your own house, are you going to have a big chandelier?”

What a consumerist thought to feed an eight year old; I half-wished I could take it back.

My miniature customer wasn’t amused.

She looked at me with disdain and walked haughtily out of the door.

Like I said, a dose of quality interaction to keep me sane.

Shop Girl in Mslexia Magazine

GUEST BLOGGER: My brother, the Original Shop Boy

When I was a kid people would tell me about how cool their cat was, what tricks their dog could do and how well spoken their parrot was. I had snails and lizards and stick insects. The only trick my lizards could do was lose their tail when stressed, a habit I’m glad I never picked up, my snails ate lettuce and my stick insects were brown and sticky.

I hatched the stick insect eggs next to the hot water tank in the house, but never remembered having left them there, and therefore an army of minute stick insects would guard the warm towels, night and day, before dying of boredom or starvation, whichever came first.

Now lizards don’t come for free in London, as many of you might know. London and Mexico differ in many ways, the most distinctive difference between the two countries being a lack of wild lizards in London, and the fact that Argos UK doesn’t accept Pesos.

All residents of London city have to work for their lizards, and I was no exception. I was the original shop boy. While my sister worked for point horror books and Unibrow Monthly Magazine subscriptions, I enthusiastically put lamps together, knowing that after a month of screwing light arms (not as much fun as it sounds, it’s the bit that sticks out from the middle of the light and holds a bulb), my father would drive me to Hackney to choose a lizard.

What attracted me to Lizards? Everyone knows dogs can’t stand halogen bulbs, but lizards love them. I linked my animal passions to my job, clearly showing my genius at a young age. If I had been running a bone shop, I’m sure I would have bought a dog. However I know dogs are expensive and I would have had to screw hundreds of bones together, I don’t know if I would have had the patience. Food for thought, I’m sure you’ll all agree.

Did my work justify a lizard you ask? Let me give you an insight. To wire a light fitting from scratch , you must first grapple with “The Chain”, the most important tool in the shop. To get cables through the fitting’s arm, you need to tie the cables onto a chain you then dangle it through the arm hole (read that carefully, if you are reading this out loud), until you are able to pull the chain through(followed by the cables) to the other end of the arm. A major part of this operation involved cables jammed somewhere in the light, “The Chain” broken in pieces inside the arm, and tears of frustration rolling down your cheek. No one could deny that this was undoubtedly worthy of a small to medium sized lizard.

At the time, I believed “The Chain” to be a professional tool designed for light construction workers worldwide, and, like me, they were all in their shops swinging light arms over their heads in frustration by their chain in attempts to dislodge it and buy a lizard.

Now, 15 years later, I realize it was the chain used to pull a plug out of our bath. I realize emptying a bath was difficult as a child because the chain was being used to pull cables through an arm in our little light shop. Still, if it meant I could have a lizard, I would wrestle with a plug any day of the week.


NB Find out more about Oriol 'Oli' Benet, a DJ and freestyle rollerblader here and here

Shop Girl Out of London

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It’s likely the cheap accommodation I mentioned is cheap for a reason.

My future flatmate did some research last week.

Turns out there might not be any heating and it could be in a building about to be demolished.

“Hey you could rename your blog ‘Squat Girl’,” my brother said, when I told him.

I worried for a while then I flew to Barcelona to help my parents clear out the family house.

Discomfort is an inevitable part of this process.

Discomfort increases when a stray cat comes in and pees against the coffee table leaving a yellow puddle on the floor.

It made my nose itch and I decided on the spot that I was allergic to cats, which isn’t a problem because I’ve never wanted one.

The only pet I’ll have is a guinea-pig and that’s when I have kids. They won’t have a choice.

But seriously, how bad can these flats really be? I wondered, as I drowned my temper and the cat pee in bleach.

The clear-out unearths old photos, letters and over fifteen years of diaries.

I’m concerned as I read them. I seem to have spent most of my young life feeling love-sick.

The writing is so familiarly dramatic that I start to worry I haven’t developed at all since I was ten.

Luckily I’ve developed externally.

My mum says she wore false eyelashes when she was a teenager so you’d think she’d have been conscientious enough to notice her own daughter’s monobrow.

No such luck.

She was lenient compared to my friends’ mums, which should’ve been a good thing.

Instead it lead me to dye my hair bright orange.

Bright orange hair combined with a dark brown monobrow is unsurprisingly hideous.

It’s a miracle I ever had a boyfriend.

Anyway, the holiday hasn’t been all cat's pee and clearing.

We celebrated the coming of the Three Kings at my Godmother/Auntie's with a paella for forty people.

There never is forty people so everyone goes away with a Tupperware full.

Delicious.

Pity the Date couldn’t make it; as a hardcore carnivore he would’ve really appreciated it.

Next time, eh?

There’s something about Barcelona.

After a few days I always start to wonder why I’m not living here.

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