Off the Plot

Ministerial Meandering

Off the plot

Yesterday I was in Mission at London Drugs.  I was exchanging my SodaStream empty gas cylinder for a full one.  A man was waiting his turn at the checkout.  He was clutching what, in England in the 60’s, I would call a Gonk.  For those of you who remain uneducated, this is a small, soccer-ball sized fluffy toy (stuffy), usually dyed some lurid colour, which becomes the object of intense affection once given to a child.  The one the man was carrying was of a sober, olive green.

Nevertheless, he himself made up for the difference.  He had the most splendid but indescribable hairstyle - so I am going to try to describe it.

Imagine a frizzy mullet crossed with a Mohawk, then shave off 90% of each side of the head to stubble and colour it orange.  Add to this a beard that appeared to contain more than just hair, and complete the picture with arms entirely covered with tattoos.  This splendid fellow could not have been even thirty, and I felt compelled to speak to him.

I indicated to him that the recipient of his ‘Gonk’ - he had never heard the word, but liked it - was going to be a lucky person.  Unless, of course, he planned to keep it for himself.  He told me it was for his son who had broken his arm.  The history behind this injury was not divulged, and I didn’t pry.  I turned to speak to Sheila who was in the process of telling me that her younger sister, Christine, had had a Gonk when she was a child.  I turned back, intending to compliment the young man on his imaginative hair style, only to see his back disappear out of the shop.  “Wonderful,”  I thought to myself, “just ever so slightly ‘off the plot.’”

He reminded me of the time when Sheila and I brought the girls over to Canada as children in the 90’s, and we were having a day downtown in Gas Town.  As tourists then, and not having emigrated from Africa yet, we were collecting useless, dust-collecting souvenirs from what we, in the Royal Navy, would call a ‘grockel-shop.’  This would denote a tourist trap designed to lighten your wallet by convincing you that your life would not be complete without another plastic Canadian flag to put…where?  However, I digress.

The purpose of my tale was to share with you the spectacle of a young lady who was serving in the shop, and had the most stunning purple hair.  Today, no-one would give her a second glance, but in the early 90’s, this was a statement of individuality that demanded recognition.  I complimented her on her hair, and told her that she had made my day - and that she was probably the only thing worth coming into the shop for.  Fortunately, she saw the funny side of my slightly barbed comment on the merchandise, and told me that I had made her day too.

I think I feel a sort of kinship with those who are ‘off the plot’.  Like Jenny Joseph, who wrote this famous poem when she was 29, in 1961, and called it, ‘Warning’.

‘When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired

And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings

And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

And pick the flowers in other people's gardens

And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

And eat three pounds of sausages at a go

Or only bread and pickle for a week

and hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

And pay our rent and not swear in the street

And set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.’

Philip+