Strangely, there was absolutely no one about. Most of the other aisles had been pretty full of people ambling along, slowly pushing trolleys, or standing in a way that successfully blocked everyone else, while craning forward to see whether they could get 20% off. Here, however, I had the run of things all to myself. There seemed to be no customers whatsoever in this section. The only person I could see was a far-off sales attendant, nodding tiredly at his mobile phone, and studiously not looking in my direction.
And so there wasn’t much sound near me either. The cares of the day, the obtrusion of other people, the clamorous atmosphere of the mall, all fell away, and I seemed to enter a serene, stress-free, expectant zone I hadn’t known for some time. Everything conspired to bring me to a moment of supreme focus, as I turned to see a brightly coloured tape, labelled ‘Home Fitness Made Easy’.
Easy? Well, that sounded promising. To tell the truth, my fitness, at home or anywhere else, hadn’t been that great for quite a while , so maybe there was a bit of guilt, a degree of self-reproach in my reaching forward for a better look. Some of my clothes seemed to have shrunk recently, I really didn’t want to buy new ones, could the reason for the tight fit be…me, expanding? The photo on the front showed an eager-looking teacher, toothy grin almost coming through the DVD cover, headfirst, and in the background a refreshingly motley-looking group of students, none of them overwhelmingly fit. This was for me.
IJ (incredulously): Wait a minute…DVD?!? So when was this? 1998?
Me: About that, yes.
IJ: I don’t believe this! So it’s ancient history, isn’t it, something dredged up practically from your unconscious!
Me: As I have said, and as I will show, your honour, my first sight of the Home Fitness Made Easy DVD heralds the coming of my greatest love affair and, as such, deserves at least a brief, respectful silence, difficult as that may be for certain persons to achieve… Meanwhile, I’ll thank you to keep your offensive remarks to yourself.
So I took home my prize. And when I played the tape, what did I see? A group of pretty ordinary people in a large room, of greatly varying figures, shapes, sizes, outfits, ages, all shyly trying out the moves suggested by the toothy and very outgoing teacher. She herself was not in the first flush of youth (then again, neither was I), but I have to say she was certainly a prime example of ‘Personality Conquers All’.
