Shop hopping

I was at the mall this afternoon looking for a ping pong ball and found nothing that satisfied my needs. Maybe it was because I was generally in a not-very-nice mood, having started out the day that way, or maybe it was because of the heat, the sweat factor and the traffic that refused to crawl as fast as it should have if the cars on the road and their drivers had observed even a smidgen of the discipline that would have made life easier for everyone. But, be that as it may, I was not a happy shopper.

Why a ping pong ball? Simple. We have a small cat at home and she needs to be kept amused. One of her favourite toys is a wine cork, nicely dried of its alcohol content, which she bats around happily but tends to lose easily – under the storage chests, under the cupboards, under the bed, wherever. Then she proceeds to look at us reproachfully, make sad peeping sounds and then root about under the carpets looking for her lost plaything. We have tried bigger balls, bits of paper, foil and rolled up plastic and, while she plays with them all, she likes the cork best. Since we are rather restrained in our intake of all things alcoholic, we needed to find her something else, fast, and the ping pong ball met the criteria of being light, easily moveable and big enough to not be swept under low furniture.

But the mall was not the right source, I found. I walked into the large and noisy toy department of the lifestyle store in the mall and found that no one understood my requirements at first. Then, once I had gesticulated, explained and, eventually, glared, I had a host of uniformed minions rushing hither and yon bringing me everything but what I wanted. Finally, fed up with all the clamour, I hunted for the objects and found them, but in a pack of three, complete with ping-pong paddles and net. Now while I am most proud of our kitten and know that she is a clever little beastie, I realise full well that though she can do almost anything she sets her wee mind to, holding a paddle is not one of those marvellous tasks she can accomplish.

Mission aborted. I stormed away, ready and most willing – since it has been a week or more of nothingness in this aspect – to buy a pair of shoes. But I was put off by the crowds that thronged the stores to either shop or, more likely, enjoy the air-conditioning. But it was not a completely useless expedition for me. Even though I returned with nothing resembling a ping-pong ball in my various packages, I did manage to get myself a vast amount of pasta of various configurations. Our kitten may not be able to play with it, but at least it will give us the fillip we need to play with her!