Above the call of duty.

Shopping for clothing is one step above a tip to the dentist. I'm not talking a quick scrape & polish here, either. I'm talking difficult extraction that involves sutures, antibiotics and a hefty bill.

Having to follow along while somebody else shops is worse.

Especially when it is in a shop like this one.

OK, the wife likes to go and cherry-pick the labels. So do a host of people who on-sell on trademe, so the bargins are few and far between- which involves frequent visits.

I can imaging few worse ways of spending a few hours of a day off. The rows of musty, ugly clothing produce a great lowness of spirit and sense of hopelesness as one strolls along second-hand junk from the warehouse. Invariably when a superior garment is found, it is of a size that only an anorexic in the final stages of their illness could fit.

Gloomy lines of shiney suits that you know used to belong to now dead men stretch off into the distance. They weren't good enough to be buried in, or were purchased for a thinner man forty years ago.

Shirts in red, orange and yellow beckon forth, looking to my eyes like the flames of hell. I'm fairly sure none were ever actually worn. I want to believe that!

Off to the side, near the entrance, are shelves of what is optimisticlly called bric-a-brac. Tat so dreadful that the $2 shop would be embarrased to sell it. It obviously sells, or it wouldn't be there. While poor people may have little choice when purchasing essentials like oven trays for reheating chips and Irvines Pies, none of this stuff is what you might call essential. Chipped wooden bowls, old sauce bottles and crap that is to tasteless to even be considered retro.

The used book section occasionaly has some gems, but not yesterday- just a heap of management style books for wannabe self-improving Amway salesmen.

By now I could smell sulphur and was waiting for the floor to crack and a pit open up, but I think that was just the staff having morning tea. If I had to work in such a place, I would throw myself into the rag baler!

The Keeper of the Gate stood watch from one of those quaint old counters that puts the Guardian of the Registar and minions well above the level of the Unwashed. For good reason, from what I saw prowling about. I would be the sort of workplace where knowing how to use your fists would to your advantage in the area of customer relations.

I left in such a fit of dark depression that could only otherwise be achieved by a trip to Pak&Save or the Warehouse in December...