Head Space Daily Words...

You know winter is around the corner when you buy yourself a pair of slippers, which is what I did yesterday. It may be true that you lose 50% of your body heat through your head but having freezing cold feet, like blocks of ice at the end of your legs, is the pits. I went to a well-known fashion store on Oxford Street and asked a girl who worked there if they sold slippers. Her response was to give out a shrill, cackle of embarrassment, in her generic European accent. “No, we don’t sell slippers,” she said. Thinking something may have been lost in translation, I trawled the shop but couldn’t find any. When I think of slippers, my mind casts back to the corduroy little numbers from Marks And Spencer that my dad used to wear when I was a kid. Perhaps the term slippers has been lost in the modern age of txt tlk and abbreviation. Maybe they are now called slers. As I walked back towards Bond Street Station, I popped into a couple more shops but to no avail – no slippers. Next to the station is another branch of the same shop that I tried first of all, so I thought ‘nothing to lose, lets give it another go.’ The young guy I asked was British, which gave him an understanding of the word slippers. He kept a straight face and pointed me in the direction of - the ROOM SHOES. Personally, I am not a fan of this rebrand of the humble slipper. Room shoes sounds too functional, whilst slippers is just a cosy term that gives you a feeling of warmth. Plus, the phrase “pass me my pipe and slippers” doesn’t work as “pass me my pipe and room shoes,” it sounds as if you are going to have a toot on the old pipe, then go for a jog around your front room. Anyway, it doesn’t end there. Next came the small dilemma of sizes. Large covers the UK shoe sizes 7-9, whilst extra large covers 10-12. Being a size 10, I was caught between a rock and a hard place. Do I go for the Large and a potential toe squeezing tighter fit, or do I go for the extra large and risk them being like a pair of canoes? I asked the same guy if he could see if there was an extra large in stock of the colour I was after, so off he sauntered to the stock room. After waiting for over ten minutes, I became concerned and once it clocked fifteen, I reported to one of his colleagues that I feared for the guy’s safety and that alien abduction may have occurred.  Then, as we were considering calling Ghostbusters, he reappeared. “Sorry for the wait dude, the stock room is massive and there was only one Extra Large left.” I couldn’t let him go to all that trouble and not buy the Extra Large, so my size issue was solved. They may be slightly too big, looking like a pair of cushioned kayaks on my feet but you need a bit of room in your slippers, right…