Mad lady



Mrs Mad, who is the most frequent of our alarmingly large number of loony visitors to our bookstore (for some reason our bookstore attracts a lot of rather mad people. Not just eccentric, plain fruit and nut. As if the mad staff weren't enough). Her latest little outburst was "can someone please switch me off? I don't want to be a Boer's wife with no money." Well, quite - I mean who would? She paid a return visit later in the day. She walks slowly up to the desk where I am working and stops in front of me. She produces a chocolate bar and unwraps it with slow deliberation, looking at me all the time, rustling the wrapper loudly. "Tell me you can't eat in the shop and I'll leave,"she tells me. Okay, you can't. She turns around and leaves. Last week she didn't even speak - she came in, looked at me then performed a small jig then left without a word.