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Tim Colwill is a 22 year old human male who resides in Perth, Western Australia. Inventor of the cardboard toaster and the car-powered car, Tim is also an accomplished author, having penned such notable works as Romeo and Juliet, Clifford The Big Red Dog, and The Bible. In his spare time, Tim directs movies under the nom de plume Steven Spielberg and maintains his own standing army of genetically engineered watermelons. Truly it is said that Tim has had an illustrious career, matched only by its ludicrously unbelievable exaggeration.

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See him surface, but never a shadow

// Filed under: Random on Sunday April 09th 2006, 9:13 pm

There’s an art to walking through department stores. Weaving between the the clothes racks, dodging the people. Spotting the patterns, the ebb and flow of the pedestrian, predicting the current. A skilled person can weave through without splashing or spilling, if you know what to look for.

Men, terrified in a foreign land, moving in abstract curves, sticking to the paths like fearful pilgrims. Or worse, anchored to their women, dumbstruck as they are towed helplessly to places they don’t understand to discuss the vagaries of perfume with old sales-women behind the counter who sell only the very latest in whale-stomach contents as an overpriced urine-coloured liquid for the fashion-conscientious consumer.

Women, men in tow as they swim between islands of bargains in a sea of consumers. Eyes peeled for tags and colour-coded demarcation, they refresh themselves by receiving beauty tips from wrinkled old saleswomen and young high-school dropouts who wear enough makeup themselves to make any tips almost certainly worthwhile.

Nattering old saleswomen talking to their friends on the phone, in the quiet, abandoned luggage section of the store, or worse, to each other at the service counter as the queue slowly increases in size. The young kid, always a young kid, in the DVD section. He looks nervous and I smile, more to myself than him, but I’m just passing through.

Straight lines are the key. You need to move in straight lines. You need to watch the crowd, but don’t let them slow you down.

Unwinding after a productive weekend and feeling good.

// 9 Comments

9 Comments »

Doomy says:

April 10, 2006 at 12:06 am

Bleh. Malls. Department stores. My preferred way of shopping is to zero-in ahead of time and be at the store for as short a time as possible. As for women that drag their men around, well… they both need to get lives, I suppose. I didn’t know shopping for perfume was a family event.
Marymary. says:

April 10, 2006 at 4:59 pm

I find that staying close to the walls is always a great help. I hate shopping. So I try and trace around the outside, before venturing into the centre. Venture in.. return to the safety of the walls…venture in. It’s a dance really. Carefully choreographed you can be in out of those baby’s in like five minutes.

Five minutes if you are a girl that is.
Popogeejo says:

April 10, 2006 at 8:31 pm

Wheel chairs.People will normaly make way for your poor chair bound pal (even if he just using the shop provided chairs for fun).Just walk behinds him and feel like Moses parting the Red Sea.
That or have a big scary black guy with you.They’re like 7 wheel chairs.
Doomy says:

April 16, 2006 at 1:25 am

Happy birthday, foo’.
Popogeejo says:

April 16, 2006 at 7:30 am

It’s Tim’s birthday?Happy birthday Tom.
t3h (h4r says:

April 20, 2006 at 12:10 am

You’re pretty. ^_^b
Tim says:

April 20, 2006 at 10:36 am

I am!
Popogeejo says:

April 21, 2006 at 2:02 am

And ya have a sweet ass.
Tim says:

April 21, 2006 at 7:14 am

I do!