Cheeky
monkey! Found his comment under my Facebook status this morning. I’ve
got this new friend online, you see. Jack Hoodie Honeytrapp. Not his
real name. Obviously. He looks in his early twenties from his profile
photo. I added him when he requested because I thought he must be
Phyllis’s grandson. He has about nine hundred Facebook friends;
makes my thirty-five look a bit threadbare, doesn’t it? I’d say
“ROTFLMFAO” but apparently that’s a bit saucy for silver
surfers like me! A bit like admitting to watching “Shameless” or
listening to “Slipknot”! That caused a bit of a ripple. I usually
settle for doing a bit of this “LOL-ling” business instead. They
can’t touch you for it!
This
morning I’m doing one of my “sweeps” down the supermarket.
Usual place, different time, because you don’t want to get too
predictable for the CCTV. Not that they staff the cameras, really.
Just dummies – staff and cameras! Last Tuesday I came away with a
whole bag of kumquats in my big plaid shopper. Don’t even know how
you’re supposed to use them! They didn’t seem to go with my
boil-in-the-bag cod in parsley sauce. I ended up throwing them away.
I
always religiously take a snap of the “sweepings”, as I call
them, before I get rid, to post on my Facebook. I love how you can
set your privacy so only certain friends can see certain photos. I
post all my “sweepings” so the other lasses-“Silver Sweepers”
we like to tag ourselves- can compare, compete, and pick up tips from
each other. Bit like a knitting circle, but with purloined goods
instead of purled ones. “Nick one, purloin one,” that’s what I
put under one of my photos, and I got loads of thumbs up on Facebook
for that one.
“Watch
and learn, sisters, watch and learn!” I put on as a little title
under the snap of those kumquats. The other Sweepers were green with
envy! Phyllis had only managed to post a really blurry photo of the
packet of desiccated coconut she’d just pinched. Desiccated
coconut? I ask you! That’s not even imaginative! She even nicked a
pot of glace cherries last month. Lois texted me this short video of
her in the magazine section shoving “Viz” magazine down her skirt
(elasticated, naturally, with “inserts”).
“Put
it on the website,” I texted back. No good just showing it to me.
We all want to see what the others are up to, or where’s the fun?
Anyway it was out of focus and you couldn’t see whether the
assistant was nearby or not, so where’s the challenge? Lois is a
bit of an amateur, to be frank. Fancies herself as a bit of a Quentin
Tarantino, I reckon. Style over substance, I say. Just my opinion, of
course, but as I started the “Sisterhood of Sweepage”, I think
I’ve a right to my two penn’orth.
These
little tables in the supermarket restaurant are very handy. I can
park my shopper trolley up against the table just where they have
that little tray-rack thing attached and as soon as my cappuccino and
my pensioners’ portion of liver and onions with peas and mash gets
brought to me by the waitress, it’s in goes the tray, down the side
of my plaid swag-bag, no bulge, no stretch, onlookers none the wiser.
Today there’s already a tray actually waiting in there, in the rack
with its rim stuck out! I had that as well, no messing! It’s a
tight fit, but a wiggle and a bit of manoeuvring, and job’s a good
‘un.
I’m
sitting here and I’m wondering now if I should maybe have gone for
the textured featherlite condoms instead. What if the trays won’t
impress the girls when I post the photos after I get home? I do a
panning sort of shot on my mobile showing the girl on the till and
the waitresses beetling up and down only a few tables away. Pretty
daring, but even I feel a bit flat just bagging a couple of melamine
trays to show for a day’s sweepage.
When
I get up to go, I can tell nobody’s even looking in my direction.
I’m in my seventies and I joined Invisibleville, society-wise,
quite a few birthdays ago! Every cloud, and all that. Back on the
bus, the driver actually shouts back to a young mother with a double
pushchair and asks her to budge up for the old lady with the tartan
print trolley, and a young man lifts the front over the step for me
as the bus isn’t one of those with the let-down hydraulic super-low
floors. Young people today! No backbone!
When
I get back home I put the trays in a good light on my kitchen
worktop, pop my bill for the meal on top as a little in-joke for the
girls, (they all love the liver-and-onions), then I take some good
full frontal shots of myself sort of hovering in the background, on
automatic timer, and then I put them all online with the footage from
the restaurant.
More
notifications and updates on my homepage: Phyllis’s grandson Jack
has just become a friend of half the Sweeper girls on my friends
list, including Lois and most of the others. Lois has been busy
uploading too, I see. There’s a new photo album on her profile
showing her in the store, grinning and pointing at some support
stockings still in the packet, poking out of her coat sleeve – not
poking out very far, mind, so you can’t really tell one way or the
other. Then there’s another couple of photos of her putting on some
of that under-eye miracle roll-on stuff. Then some pictures showing
how much they’ve ironed out her wrinkles and that “under-eye
area” we used to call “bags”! Except they haven’t, of course;
her mug looks just as saggy! All that gurning and grimacing for
nothing!
Lois
usually misses the point, bless her. Maybe the wrinkle stick is a
step in the right direction for her. I keep telling her the rule is
supposed to be that sweepings have to be things we couldn’t
possible have any use for. That way, if anybody starts to suss out
what we’re up to (allegedly!), we can put them straight, tell them
we couldn’t possibly have taken these items for ourselves. What,
me? Your cuddly old gran? Kumquats, condoms, lads’ mags, they fit
the bill, but half of what Lois sneaks out is too like the stuff she
has on her shopping list anyway! That’s not cricket. That’s
common or garden shoplifting!
I
decide to do the double today. A morning-and-afternooner, as I call
it. I have my cuppa and a digestive around two, then I’m off down
the little chemist on the precinct. I can’t get my plaid trolley
into the chemist, so I just take my ordinary bag instead. It’s even
more challenging, in here, as it’s more hands-on, face-to-face.
There’s always an assistant around, doling out advice on which
cough medicines you need for tickly, dry or phlegmy, or they’re
offering to reach you down the incontinence pads from the top shelf.
Why do they put them there, for goodness’ sake? You’re blinking
well weeing from having to stretch up there! Too much information, as
they say. Still, today, I’m here on a mission, so I’m on the look
out for something more unlikely. I go up and down the aisles, very
slowly.
“Just
browsing, dear,” I mutter, “thank you very nicely, forgotten my
list.”
The
assistant goes back to shelf stacking and I shuffle round the other
side, furthest away from the dispensing counter. That new pharmacist
always comes out glaring over her half-rimmed specs, asking people
their address as if they couldn’t make that up! Amateurs!
I
look on the bottom shelves. Gift items, false eyelashes so you can
look like Cheryl Cole, Kylie perfume, hair straighteners. Lots of
potential, but they leave me a bit cold, this afternoon. I want a
real biggie to impress and inspire the girls. Even Phyllis seems to
be lowering her targets lately. Desiccated blooming coconut, indeed!
You can’t get slack, or what’s the point?
I
feel a bit creepy, like I’m being watched. There’s a young man
who came in after I did and he’s still hanging around. I can’t
get into my stride with him malingering there like a bad smell. I
think I might go with the eyelashes after all, or maybe now is the
hour of the textured featherlite? Suddenly I decide to go for both.
The false flutterers slip into my side zip compartment. The security
camera’s on the other side of the shop. They have one that looks
out into the street, too. I move off in pursuit of the condoms, but
they are right opposite the counter. The young man in the hoodie’s
still dithering about just behind me. Has he seen me go for the
lashes? She who hesitates is lost! I’m just about to reach out for
man’s best friend, when he’s leaning over my shoulder. He grabs a
packet of some very boring looking Mr Averages, and then he’s at
the counter, blushing and coughing as he pays for them. Quit while
you’re winning, Rene! Don’t push it. I leave the shop while the
assistant’s dealing with reluctant Romeo.
My
mobile battery’s running down to the red bit, but I didn’t get
chance for any photo evidence on this job, anyway. I could stick on
the eyelashes back at home and get some shots that way. I watch the
young man come out of the shop. I know what you’ve been up to, but
you don’t know what I’ve been up to! He looks vaguely familiar
now I come to have a proper look, but I can’t place him. I watch
him till he’s back in his car. There’s another bloke in the
driving seat with a policeman’s uniform on. Is this why we pay our
taxes?
When
I get home, there’s a private message on my Facebook from Phyllis.
She says no, Jack isn’t her grandson, where did I get that notion?
She thought he must be Lois’s grandson. But Lois says not. Lois has
been asking Phyllis, “What are privacy settings, anyway?”
“GR8
2 C U 2DAY.L8R G8R,” Jack’s posted on my wall again.
Unintelligible but sweet, as ever. More pressing, I’d better check
up on Lois and her privacy settings! Apparently, she’s showing her
sweeper’s gallery to her whole friends list, or everybody, more
likely.
I’ve
been in for a while when my flat’s intercom doorbell buzzes. I
ignore it for a minute while I glue on my phony eyelashes with the
special non-toxic adhesive provided. Still time for an upload or two
to get the girls giggling before suppertime. I have my camera at the
ready and I’m just thinking up a snappy caption for it, like: “The
cashier didn’t bat an eyelash,”or maybe “Granny’s Allowed,”
when the doorbell buzzes again, a bit too insistent, for my liking.
At this time of day! Don’t they know we’re all pensioners in
here?
So
I open the door with the eyelashes half on, semi-sighted cos I can’t
get my specs back on in the rush. It’s two young men with a warrant
to search my flat.
“Mrs
Irene Garland?” one says, and I can see he’s the spitting image
of young Jack off Facebook, and the other chap’s suspiciously like
the policeman in the car this afternoon.
I
don’t say much. What’s the point? They show me reams of printed
out photos they’ve downloaded from Lois’s sad little collection.
They’ve already got Phyllis’s particulars. I haven’t heard that
word since I last listened to Gilbert and Sullivan on my iPod!
My
case comes up before the magistrates in a couple of weeks. They give
me time to unglue my Cheryls before they take me down to the station.
They are very decent and a bit apologetic for duping me into a sense
of false security. Jack Hoodie Honeytrapp. He didn’t fool a pro
like me for a second! Sitting in the back of the unmarked police car,
I have a bit of time to do some serious chillaxing.
“Leader
of a criminal internet web ring” is a tad erring on the side of
overkill, IMHO, but it’ll look good on my CV! The other sweepers
will have to settle for supporting roles. The boys in blue don’t
seem to notice the lumps in my Damart thermals, even when they go
through my handbag for contraband goods. In fact I chillaxed all the
way back to my flat with a regulation clipboard, a couple of pencils,
a small roll of “Crime Scene-Do Not Enter” fluorescent tape and
pair of standard issue handcuffs, no key, but who’s counting?
I
think I might give all this social networking a miss tonight and have
a night in with the soaps. Or maybe “C.S.I.”
