Airport

Crazy times. I throw on clothes, don’t bother to wash, say bleary goodbyes to sleepy eyes and shut the door, out into a pre-dawn winter world. But no, not to East Lothian I go, but to town. My gosh, people go to work at this hour?! I haven’t done this shit for a while. Standing on platforms in the dark… ‘I ride the 7.15 to nowhere, station master calls my train’… Staring at your phone. Some nutter could just give you a push at the right moment and you’d never even notice.

After all the build-up, all the prep, all the research, the rumours, the story in The Sun, this is it! Or is it? Would the mega January 70% off Boots clearance sale be on today? “When is the Boots clearance…?” How many times was that typed into Google in the preceding weeks, I wonder? And in how many variations? Yes, it’s on, it’s definitely on. There’s something happening here. An unnatural increase in Princes Street footfall. 

Shoppers stream away, bulging bags hanging from arms, like drying clothes. Into the bright lights of Boots at 8.10am (yes, after all this, I am late, typical), following the keyed-up crowd up the escalator to the first floor of delights. Oh. My. Gosh. Chaos.

Like entering the check-in hall of the airport at 6am, when time suddenly shifts and the brain flails, from darkness into fizzing phospo light, sweat, stress, everything harsh, laid bare, uncloaked, horribly real. You’re still dreaming, but you’re in a queue; people, people everywhere. Bald blokes in quilted jackets and proper shoes, instructions relayed: “Get this, get that, get it, get it, get more!” Women of a certain age. Clichéd Koreans (Chinese?), Pakistani wives, the sad wizened faces of car boot sale stall holders. You can see the dusty wares stripped of fancy wasteful packages, marked up, re-sold - and why not? Brimming tables in subterranea, the car park where the world outside has collapsed and died and we live in darkness.


I fight my way through the crowds to get to the best bargains. No I don’t. I’m polite. I let people go in front of me. I take what I can carry. The bloke’s stuff is shit. Who wants a Gerard Butler-branded set of scent, socks and cricket ball? No wonder there’s six million left to shift. Boyfriends guard piles of loot, Ikea bags full, while she goes back for more. I queue. “Ryanair flight 694 to Stanstead is delayed by approximately 90 minutes”… “please remove your belt”… what the? Where am I? Do I wake or do I sleep? And why the fuck am I dreaming of Boots? I should have got more (than I could carry). There’s always next year. “When’s the 70% off clearance sale?...”