The Schalter

Written by: Hattie Kennedy

I have a song I like to sing but only on very special occasions. It goes to the tune of a chart topping 2007 song and has lyrics that will be familiar to you all. Despite being tunelessly sung with the words out of time it is a song that brings a particular kind of joy to my day.

As with all great songs there is a story behind this one. Just as with all those songs it is a love story. I had just moved to a new city, everything was strange, the people were alien, they spoke another language, the shops were expensive, the weather was unseasonal and I felt out of place. One Saturday morning an acquaintance offered to show us a local market. Lacking for anything else to do we decided to accompany him and hopped into the subway to ride the few stops North.

As we emerged from the underground it happened. I glanced across the crowded pavement and it was like the world stood still. I knew we belonged together, they knew it too. You may have noticed that I am playing the pronoun game here. You may well be assuming that the attraction I speak of is one that the rest of society would find unacceptable. It breaks my heart to admit it, but you would be right. Ours is not a relationship that my friends back home will accept, ours is not a love that will survive the journey 3000 odd miles back East. In just a few short months we will be parted and I will leave this city knowing that my life has been changed irrevocably by this friendship.

That first day was magical, we came together in a fruitful union and walked for hours, hand-in-hand, each of us full of tasters of the amazing array of delicacies on offer in this glorious place. As our trip came to an end we turned to go home together; the first day of our all too short life together had ended.

In the six months since we met we have been everywhere together, the supermarket, the dollar store, the laundromat. We have returned our empty bottles for refunds, we have shopped for parties and economy drives, united in our little trips together, saving the environment in our own special way. But a dark day is approaching, the day of my return to Glasgow. Scruffy, shabby, lovely Glasgow, judgmental Glasgow. A city where I will not be able to go out hand-in-hand with my new friend as I have had so much fun doing here in liberal Montreal. A city where I would be mocked and laughed at for the life choice I would make by returning with my new friend.

And so on June 9th we will part ways. We will go out for one final trip together and for the last time I shall sing:

“Me and my shopping trolley, olly, olly, olly, eh, eh, eh…”

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This post is tagged Crazy But True