I FOUND WALLY - HE'S A TWAT

SORRY I have been away so long, some may miss me, many others won't. I have been very calm, Zen like, with nothing to go nuts about. It got that bad at being good that I was even considering ranting about being all Zen.

But then all my chakras suddenly realigned again and I melted into more annoyingly warm bliss. I was caught in a vicious cycle of Zen, happiness was everywhere eating at my very soul. No man should have to deal with this. There seemed no hope of escape. Then I went to the supermarket.

I took my little son to a local heavily armed superstore to pick up some essentials like milk, cheese, lard, fury, repercussions and lollipops.

I approached the parent and toddler parking bays as I felt I had the right, what with a three-year-old in the car. To my horror, I passed a lanky skinny oaf of a man in his 50s who had decided that despite appearing to be childless, his monster 8*8 deserved to have a space.

WALLY FINALLY GETS TO UNLOAD HIS CHILD-FREE CAR

He stood there preening and cleaning his glasses at the side of his oversized beast as I pulled up behind him. He had a ludicrous red and white stripped jumper on, jeans and a presumably hilarious hat.

"I've found Wally," I shouted at my son in the back.

"How could they leave him here all alone in this car park? He has not even got thousands of people in similar dress around him. Maybe this is the shy Wally."

Then, as I was getting out to chat to this fella, I got to thinking what happens when you finally find the real Wally? Is he made redundant, killed or just thrown into another desperate nightmare of a crowd like he is in the books?

"Is your child invisible?" I asked this rake of a man who had the hungry hunted look of a vegetarian piranha.

But when he opened his mouth, wow. There was much more fury than anyone could imagine from such a timid looking wafer thin empathy-free gobshite.

"WHAT?" He spoke like he had already decided the world was a hole and he wanted to fight anything that moved in it.

His angry eyes darted around looking for weapons, exits, people to crucify, other people wearing similar clothes, cheese, who knows what, but they refused to stay still in his lolling head.

Well, I wasn't about be brow-beaten by a psychedelic plank.

"It's just that I notice you are parked in a parent and child zone but appear not to be so encumbered. Is your car pregnant?"

"What's it got to do with you?"

"Everything," I said defiantly. "Can you read? It states clearly that these areas are for parents with their children as it can be daunting, not to say dangerous crossing a busy car park with bags of shopping, a trolley, children, an uneasy feeling you have forgotten something and an aching desire to be anywhere else.

I continued as a small crowd gathered: "Does it say, 'lazy b*****ds park here?' No. Does it say 'people who think their car is too important to obey simple rules park here?' No. Does it say Wally lives here? No. Does it say 'twats park here? No."

"My car is too big to park in the normal spaces so I park it here as there is more room," he bleated. "What harm am I doing? You are just one of those people who hate big cars."

"No, cars are stupid things to hate. It's like hating a tree or a fridge, what would be the point? Save the hate for things that are worth it. You for instance. Now are you going to move your car or are me and my young son here going to make a proper scene involving dancing and screaming?"

There were already people milling in that curious way people do when there might be a fight. Shuffling, looking busy while doing nothing, like council road workers.

A young lady with two children piped up to support me saying he was selfish idiot. Calm and true she was. Staff had begun to move a step closer, not close enough to be involved, God forbid, but close enough to see the action.

He called me childish. I said I wasn't the one wearing a Christmas jumper and a bobble hat but he missed it as he climbed into his car defeated and moved it 20 feet to another parking spot.

I got a round of applause. Victory was mine, briefly.

I headed to the store, full of bloody Zen again. I was annoyingly balanced.

THE GRAPES OF WRATH - WELL JUST GRAPES ACTUALLY

Then I got a trolley and the chakras went arse over tit.

I had to stick a pound in its mouth and we were free to go, in one sideways direction, like a crab stroke victim.

It lurched suddenly and awkwardly to the right with an unfamiliar jarring that accompanied every forward step, rather like Nick Clegg's coalition lap dogs.

We got into the story, the little one picked up a basket, very wise, and we headed through the barrier into the wretchedness.

The trolley heaved to the right again, this time a little easier, like the Labour Party just before an election.

Some would give in, not me. It's a trolley. I summoned up all my powers and decided to adopt an existential approach and keep going right to see what happened.

I was stopped pretty sharpish by a big-handed woman apparently on secondment from Greggs. She approached all cheap perfume and patient resentment.

"Is that your child?" She said through a fog of old cigarette smoke and antipathy.

"That depends on what he is doing and what your view on ownership is," I said all smart and hippy. "I favour viewing him as a free spirit I am simply tasked with taking care off for a few years. Why?"

She pointed behind me. "He is eating all the fruit."

I looked back. The bloody free spirit was eating his way through their chopped fruit dispenser whatnot. People either side of him were filling little containers before closing them and putting it into what appeared to be politically neutral trolleys. He on the other hand was grabbing handfuls of grapes and melon and, aiming in the direction of his mouth, was consuming about 10 per cent of it.

He had upturned his basket and was standing on it tucking in, very clever boy. I was so proud.

"Ah. Am I to assume you wish to congratulate him for stealing a healthy snack given the Scottish penchant for eschewing fruit in favour of other lardier treats?"

"You will need to stop him."

"I have a plan. Let's take him to your butchery counter." Her eyes lit up at the prospect of a hairy handed butcher removing the grapes and melon by force.

"We can weigh him just now and then, when we have finished, we can weigh him again. I will pay the cost of the differing weights. We will have to hope he doesn't spot the pic 'n' mix as I struggle around with this belligerent trolley, or indeed that he has one of his regular bowel tragedies as that could distort the measurement."

"What, can't you just tell him to stop?" She said slightly hysterical but with the unnerving calm of the unglued.

"No," I insisted. "He will get cross then and all manner of bad stuff happens when he is cross."

She stood and stared at me all half scrunched eyes and angled mouth as though I was a snake trying to eat her sofa. "Tell him to stop please."

I was lost. This lass was terminally untroubled by me. There was nothing I could do. I had to give in, defeated by a permanently dazed loon in an asinine tabard.

"Come here Algernon, and stop eating the fruit," I shouted, in stark contrast to the Scottish Government's advice. Algernon's not his name but he knows my voice and I thought it would please the fruit fascist.

I stayed for just two aisles as I couldn't turn left. I departed with some mushrooms, teabags and a fruit filled child entering a natural sugar high.

To add insult to shame, I could not  get the pound back out of the bloody trolley no matter how I tried.

I was on my way back to the store to sweat over someone in authority when I saw another feckless arse parking in the parent and toddler bays without a child. I wandered over.

"Do you need a trolley?"

"Yes please, thanks."

I took her pound and watched her lurch down the road leaning to the left as though that would halt the inevitable lurch to the right. She was last seen heading towards the shop and intolerable anguish.

Victory was mine.