A very bad weekend

Saturday - 11:15 am

I really feel that this will be a positive day.

All right. I started the morning without coffee, I swallowed half a pack of biscuits, guilt gripped my stomach and the day presaged rain.

But then everything went well, the sky is opening, the supermarket wasn't too crowded and the cashiers weren't as slow as usual. On the contrary, they even smiled at me and packed my shopping in a polite way.

I really have to start looking at the bright side of things. Why do I always have to be so bloody pessimistic? Of course I still write obituaries and proofread and I still have Lu, Jessica, Angela and Romina breathing down my neck, but I won't see them for two days. Two days! I will be able to detox from them and their sour faces.

This afternoon I can also go to the cinema! Why not? There is that cinema close to home that makes a show at 7:30 pm. Maybe I can spend a couple of hours seeing something extremely funny and then I can call Miriam and get eight hours of full sleep before spending a Sunday with my family. Of course, there will be thousand questions from mom and the grunts of Carlo, but I will be able to chat with my sister-in-law and see my beloved nephew Matteo.

Isn't it all better when you start thinking positive? Make a thousand projects, plan this and that and find a lot of things to do, without ever getting bored.

I walk briskly and feel a happy smile invading my lips.

I had planned to return home, leave the shopping bag and run to take the metro, but why do double road? I'm close to my stop and the stationery is not that far from the metro station where I get off every morning to go to the office.

So I get on the train with the shopping bag and just 15 minutes later I walk immersed in the still dozing crowd of Saturday morning. Groups of old men argue animatedly at the tables of the bars overlooking the street. Overpriced-smelling ladies sip their cappuccino and savour small buttery croissants. A few little boys chatter next to the sidewalks and two or three couples with children in tow trot on the sidewalk and enter the shops.

I've always loved window shopping, ever since I went out with my first-year high school classmate for the first time at the age of fourteen. Corinna, with thick glasses and a ponytail. We went out at five in the afternoon and spent hours staring at clothes and make-up that we couldn't afford. At the time I thought that with her my life in high school would be different, that we would support each other and survive together until the diploma. But unfortunately, a year later, Corinna's father had a transfer and she left. We continued to talk for a while but, as always, life went on, we lost sight of each other and I continued wandering around the centre alone, staring at the windows and imagining buying clothes at unreasonable prices.

It's not like it's any different now.

I keep buying clothes in those megastores I hate to death and languishing in front of the shops in the city centre. But I'm sure things will change soon.

As I said, I must have a positive and far-sighted attitude because, apparently, our way of placing ourselves in the world is reflected in our gestures and on our face. Or so I read in a magazine. I don't remember what it was, but that article also struck me because I was in an acute phase of despair and... Anyway, let's go back to the piece.

Agenda. Blackboard.

Stationery shop.

I can see the sign from here. It is there, shining in its amaranth and silver colours with golden lettering and glittering edges. I often stop there because the window is always well decorated and stocked and, let's face it... I love stationery. But I rarely went in and bought something. Not because I'd never bought pens, pencils or rubbers! Imagine! I have consumed more than I can remember. It's just that... well... it's a little embarrassing to go into a shop like that to ask for a banal pen for a few cents or some blocks for a few euros. Especially when you are served by those salesgirls who are all up to the point that they seem secretaries of some very important law firm or something like that. They see you enter, let you wander around for a few moments and then approach you with a broad smile and a trail of perfume that remains impregnated on you, asking if you need something or if they can help you. It's not that they're not kind! Far from it! It's just embarrassing to say you need a pencil. I mean... if I have to buy a trivial pencil, I can go to the news-stand down the street or to the haberdashery behind my house, right? I'm not going to buy a pencil in such an elegant shop.