Maybe I looked like an adult waif, a figure who commands pity sooner than anything else.
I’d been on a temporary ragged phase, wearing old but comfortable loose black jeans belted high up to stop them slipping, and my oldest favourite T-shirt.
A little that guy, but without the overcoat, hat, flowers, and holes. Alright, alright, without the pipe, cane, bow-tie, etc, but with the goofy look and smile. An up-market version.
I’d breezed into a food shop, but been caught out twice. Would you believe, by foreign gold coins someone had slipped me upstream, but that this checkout person wouldn’t accept. Once with a Canadian two-dollar piece, and the other with a dollar coin from elsewhere.
Both times I’d been rescued by the person behind me in the queue, who happily paid up, saving me hauling my weary butt out to the car and back.
That more than made up for the wily mean shysters who’d first passed them on.