Observe, don't meddle

Over the last nine days I have done ten mystery shops. I have scaled the heights of Skipton, delved into the depths of Sowerby, and wandered fairly absentmindedly through the pit of Bramley.

In fact, I’ve done just so many shops and had so little time to do much else, that I have decided to condense my experiences of the last week into one lovely, manageable, single blog post.

So, I suppose I begin last Monday, with a trip to a local fastfood outlet (which shall not be named in the risk of free advertising for the international franchise to my vast array of readers…). Here, sat on my own watching the other Huddersfieldians munch of their food, my external monologue grew like Wakefield rhubarb… fast.

My observations were hooked by a couple sat across the restaurant from me. The girl was sat chewing on a cob of sweetcorn. I was impressed by this: a healthy meal in a less-than-healthy store, until I realised this was only a small starter in preparation to her main course: two burger meals.

As I gaped at the amount of food piled in front of her, and the fat globules of butter dripping off her sweetcorn, I turned towards the male sitting next to her. I refer to him as a male as this is what he was. He wasn’t a man, he couldn’t be. His gender was established due to the enormous bald cranium shining at me from a distance. However, I would stop short in saying this guy was human. He was at the time gnashing his way through a double burger of some kind, and this is where I realised his jaw was wider than his head. No man’s jaw should be wider than his head. It either means his brain didn’t develop enough to achieve minimum capacity, or he’s eaten so much meat over the years his jaw muscles could enter a strongman contest on their own. This meat-eater was no man, he was a beast, and his stomach proved as much.

Anyway, that pretty much summed up Monday. It wasn’t until later on in the week that I found my next ‘observation’. I had to hurry to get a train to Bradford, and only just got it. I sat down with relief on the train, and looked up to feel my relief turn to utter joy. A man was sat in front of me that looked exactly like Pierce Brosnan. Now, I’m not saying his eyes were similar, or his mouth was, rather his entire face was James Bond. He was reading a book in a smarmy yet cool sort of way. Out of ten (ten being Pierce and zero being an alien) I’d give him a solid nine. The only way I knew it wasn’t 007 was that there was no way in hell Pierce Brosnan would be using a clattery old train, in commoner class, to travel from Leeds to Bradford. Still, I put it up there with when I thought I saw Chris Martin in Nando’s, Huddersfield.

I got off the train and was walking through Bradford when I strolled past Topman. In the window was a range of manikins, wearing a variety of, well, clothes. The clothes didn’t really capture my attention however; it was the manikins. Imagine holding a dead frog, with a large, round belly, from its neck. The belly protrudes forwards while the legs flop back at a strange angle. This is what the manikins looked like. The hip, like the frog’s belly, was a pivot for the body and legs to skew off in two freakish and impossible angles. It was simply thrust forward about half a foot. Now one stands with their crotch protruding 15cm from their body. This annoyed me a little bit to be honest. Although what annoyed me more was the fact I was annoyed by it, as is often the case.

On the bus back from Bradford I was stood near three people of about my age. One guy had a ludicrously strong West Yorkshire / Asian accent. I could barely understand a word he was saying. However, through the garbled dialect I heard one phrase: “Shut up you fanny crack”. This rather took me aback. I looked at the guy who had said such a base thing and found it remarkable a 20-year-old would use such adolescent language. The girl he said it to didn’t even flutter an eyelid. But what really got me was the context he said it in. The guy had earrings, new coat, clean trainers and new gloves. He clearly cared about his appearance, so why didn’t he care about how he spoke? I suppose he just found it normal. I was confused.

I can’t really remember much more, other than today, walking back from Leeds, I passed the Student Union. As I walked past, I heard a guy talking to his mates. All I heard was “I was literally killed six times”. Now, I’m fairly sure that’s an overstatement. Saying you’ve been killed once is hyperbolic enough, literally or otherwise. His mates looked impressed anyway, so I decided to let him revel in his glory uninterrupted.