I distinctly bear in mind, once I was younger, that there was this cliche about middle-aged ladies: they beloved shoplifting. Not common shoplifting, the place you want a factor and may’t afford it, however menopause shoplifting, the place you don’t want the factor in any respect and you are taking it anyway. It was a staple of radio comedy and layperson psychobabble, and teachers undertook real inquiries about what might probably be inflicting it. Was it normal melancholy or one thing extra particular? A philosophical response to the lack of fertility and the way unjust that was, maybe? I all the time discovered that clarification quite unconvincing, however what did I do know? These items was years off.
Then in 2001, Winona Ryder ruined it for everybody by pulling off a heist so spectacular (aged solely 30!) that she single-handedly broke the cliche, and it handed out of utilization. Earlier than I obtained an opportunity to see whether or not shoplifting was enjoyable or not, the social crucial had disappeared and the urge by no means took me, though my pal did as soon as steal a marriage card, and if you wish to know the way authentically menopausal that was, she didn’t even know anybody who was getting married.
The store reverse me, sadly, has one thing I would like. I don’t wish to pay for it. I simply wish to have it. They’re rising courgette flowers of their out of doors planters. It has a fairytale jeopardy – doesn’t the wrath of a wizard all the time begin with somebody stealing a lettuce? – and likewise, I would like these flowers. I wish to fill them with cheese and deep fry them, and I don't wish to be the type of one that enters the store and politely asks to purchase issues which might be rising. I cross the store 4 or six occasions a day, and I'd be mendacity if I mentioned I don’t generally exit with a pair of scissors. Circumstances have to this point not been proper – all the time somebody lurking about, or a canine or one of many youngsters with me – and this positively isn’t behaviour I wish to mannequin. I can settle one thing, although: I don’t really feel depressed or remotely philosophical. I really feel alive.*
*Notice: I’m solely admitting it so as to not observe it by way of. However you knew that.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
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