Shopping parade conspiracy

I think our local shop keepers have had enough of me. There seems to be some sort of conspiracy between them to keep me away. It started with balding children and ended with shrunken curtains, confused? You will be.

Let me start by telling you about our local shops. It is the sort of thing we had in the UK before Tesco's metro and Sainsbury's local destroyed it all. A parade of shops if you will. The sort of place we used to hang around after school kicking a football or trying to cop off with each other, till the fed up shop keepers threatened to tell your mum and dad and you scarpered.

We have a coffee shop;butchers;chemist;two,dry cleaners;cigarette/paan kiosk;grocery store;bank;estate agent and hardware stand.Everyone down there is very friendly and helpful, well they were until this week.

At first I couldn't work out why everyone was turning hostile but after a bit of detective work I have found that the responsibility lies squarely at the foot of The British School New Delhi. It is from there that Raffi has managed to infect himself with hair lice. Not an un-common problem one would assume. Certainly not something that would make me become a social pariah in my own neighbourhood. Unfortunately it has, and here is why.

I walked down to the chemist with Rafa and Silas to get some treatment for it and the conversation went like this:

"Hello how are you?"

"Very well, what can I do for you?"

"I am after a hair lice treatment for my children."

At this point, the girl behind the counter looked at me in utter disgust.

"Sorry sir we do not do this for children." Came her curt response.

"Are you sure?" I questioned.

"Absolutely sir, if you want a treatment for you, this is OK but for your children this is not right."

She then cast me a look that made me feel somewhere between a paedophile and a rapist and I left the shop.

A little confused I thought no more of it and went home. That afternoon the guy from the local dry cleaner came to the house with our freshly cleaned curtains. He very kindly offered to re hang them for me which he got on with until I looked and saw that they had shrunk by a good 5 inches.

I called his boss and told him he had better get up here straight away and explained what had happened. He arrived looking at me as if I was something on his shoe and I wondered if he was privy to the lice information and a little wary to enter. More to the point had he shrunk the curtains on purpose?

He looked at the curtains and told me they hadn't shrunk and that I had in fact lifted the curtain pole! I explained to him that he was lucky 'A' wasn't here and it was me he was dealing with and sent him on his way to get them stretched and on the pole by the time she got home, or his arse would be kicked all over Shanti Niketan!

After enduring 'A' screaming down the phone to the maid and I about what she was going to do if her $400 curtains were ruined I decided enough was enough and headed down to see Mr. Merry at our local store for a diet coke. I said

"Hi Mr. Merry" my normal greeting to him, to which he replied.

"My name is not Mr. Merry, that is the name of the store, my name is Ravi". He eyed the boys up with a shake of the head and look that said poor kids. I had no idea why Ravi had chosen this point after nearly a year to turn nasty and inform me of his correct name but my suspicion was still the lice.

Surely everyone is not turning nasty because my son has nits? This is India, most of them will happily pee up the wall in front of you, I they really that prissy about few nits? With the bit between my teeth and the realisation that everyone was looking at me with disgust I decided to drag the boys back into the chemist, determined to find a treatment for Rafa.

Once inside it was a scene reminiscent of the bar in American werewolf in London. All the staff came to a standstill and peered at the freaks before them. Summoning up some courage and suppressing my anger I asked again.

"Are you sure you have not treatment for hair lice for my children? It is no big deal and quite common in the UK for kids to suffer from them."

"Sorry sir them?"

"Yes them, hair lice"

"Lice?"

"Yes lice, that crawl in your hair"

With that, her frown changed to a laugh and look of relief.

"I am very sorry sir I thought you were looking for a treatment for hair loss for your son! I thought it was strange because he has very long hair and it was not nice to be treating your child for this"

With that there were laughs all round and people started relaying from shop to shop what had happened and laughter was ringing out every where.

It was then that the penny dropped. The chemist thought I was involved in some sort of sick child abuse whereby I try and make my boy's hair grow as fast and as thick as I can artificially and had told the whole parade thus making me public enemy number 1.

I left the chemist with the treatment seeing the funny side and passed Ravi on the way out who told me I could call him Mr. Merry if I choose. the dry cleaner told me the curtains would be sorted by Saturday and apologised for his mistake and the woman at the coffee shop asked if I wanted a pastry!

All was well with the world again and I was back to being, that-nice-tall-bloke-with-the-two-cute-kids and not serial-rapist-and-possible-murderer-on-the-run.

I got home and relayed the comedy of errors to 'A' who sat there looking rather sheepish. She then explained that she had just been down there herself and given the dry cleaner a massive bollocking about the curtains. The poor guy took her tirade while trying to argue his point before finally getting a word in and explaining she was at the wrong dry cleaners!

My status has no doubt once again plunged and I now no longer feel I can ever shop there again.

Thanks 'A' you are a star.