Yesterday was one of the worst days I've ever had in my life in a job. Nothing to do with my job, rather more to do with a bullying young twenty-something woman who came in and verbally abused me for twenty five minutes. I coped for about fifteen of those twenty five minutes, then I became cutting and eventually asked her to leave. The whole experience was traumatic and when she had gone I felt deeply upset and as though I had sunk to her level, or at least taken a step towards her. Today I am left with the residual bad feelings...that kind of knot that comes with deeply unfair and unproductive conflict. It's one of those times when you've got to ask yourself where your sense of self-worth lies. Oh dear. Let's hope I feel better by Monday. By then she will be making a complaint about me to my boss. That's ok, though, I like my boss. She's a reasonable person.

I sort of stumbled out of work and decided to go to the supermarket. I find supermarkets calming and therapeutic. Perhaps it's how clean and tidy they are. Perhaps it's how comforting they are...with all of those provisions just waiting to make my life more convenient. I did a full shop, taking my time, sort of pathetically hoping I would run into a friend, which is so unlike me. It wasn't that I wanted to moan about my day, rather that I wanted to see a face that wasn't hostile. Instead, I saw something rather more surreal.

I had my trolley packed and ready to go when K called. I sat down to take the call on a seat across from an empty checkout. As I was bemoaning my sorrows, a girl of about twelve sat down at the checkout with a bottle of wine, a jar of peanut butter and a box of teabags. Presumably her life was too busy for her to queue and she had decided to take care of matters herself. She persistently pushed buttons and scanned things, but nothing really happened. She resorted to pulling streams of paper out of the receipt dispenser. Eventually a nervous and incompetent member of staff said, "Pet, you're not supposed to be here." Without a word, she literally skipped off the seat and went to her mother, who was two aisles down.

I feel the need to say

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH THE BEHAVIOUR OF CHILDREN?! WILL THERE BE CHILDREN IN DAMN GOVERNMENT NEXT? WHY ARE PARENTS AFRAID TO SAY NO? WHY DO CHILDREN RULE HOUSEHOLDS AND PARENTS ACT LIKE ARSETARDS? WHY IS MY BLOOD PRESSURE SO HIGH? AND DO I HAVE TIME FOR A SHOWER BEFORE I GO OUT THIS MORNING?

NEURO-PRAXIS -- ALL THESE QUESTIONS AND MORE