Sometimes you just gotta do it

Yours truly has decided that it is Time To Grow Up. I am being oppressed by the weak dollar (although today's exchange rate of $1.98870 to a pound is making my heart feel a tad lighter than last week's rate of $2.09876!). And at age 22, I feel it is no longer appropriate to make frivolous purchases on the parental credit cards (this includes alcoholic beverages and plane/train/boat tickets). Not to mention the fact that my 41 year old classmate called me "spoiled" the other day, although him being older and (possibly, but probably not) wiser might have colored his judgement ever so slightly. Nevertheless, I took my bruised ego home and spent some free time perusing the wonder that is gumtree.com (craiglist's less sketchy cousin) and found myself a part-time job in .... hold your breath..... a maternity/kiddie store in my neighborhood. Why oh WHY, you may ask, oh curious reader, did I choose to work at a maternity store, of all places?! My reasons are manifold:

1) There are no drunk people in my face asking to buy me or themselves a "drank"
2) I couldn't bear the thought of crossing the river into central London (shudder) just to go to work
3) I can roll out of bed and be at work in 15 minutes
4) The manager gave me a raise on my first day
5) The baby mobiles are strangely captivating

So today I spent all day labeling little toys (that I TOTALLY WANT) and staring off into space (or at the various colors on the wall). Let's all just take a moment here to think about how responsible I'm being, not to mention the things that I will now be able to afford: bus passes, cocktails (or koktajls, as my strapping eastern european man likes to call them), tickets to art exhibitions, textbooks (sad but true) and plane tickets. The babies that visited the store today were astonishingly quiet, leading my mind to wander off and think about the questionable methods used by mothers in the Punjab, such as mixing opium into baby milk to quiet those suckers. On my lunch break I ventured out to the park, passing three other baby stores on the way. Nappy Valley is no joke!