“I must try once and for all to overcome this fear”

A FRIEND waylays me in town.

She asks if I fancy minding her vintage shop next Tuesday. My objections to this idea surface in the form of fear; simple fear that coils around my organs like a snake, before slithering up the back of my throat to my brain, where it paralyses all cognitive function.

I call to mind her shop, all pink and sparkly. Selling all manner of pretty vintage goods — from fur tippets to brocade swing-coats — her shop is warm and inviting, with ambient lighting.

I’m so often in it that it quite feels like home. No. I’ve nothing against her shop. And I’d like to oblige my friend.

“Yes, but…” I stammer, rubbing clammy palms together, “what about your till?”

“What about my till?”

I say, flinching, “I’ve seen it. I know you say it’s the simple kind with big buttons that even a monkey could operate, but…”

“But what?” she says in the tone of someone who is having none of it.

“…but that’s a monkey,” I finish weakly.

“Tell you what, come to the shop half an hour before I open, and I’ll talk you through the till,” she says.

“You don’t understand,” I tremble, “crucially for me, your till does not instruct its user what change to give the customer.”

My friend is definitely having none of it. “I don’t believe you’re as bad at adding up as you say you are,” she says.

Since my fear of adding up has put all cognitive function on pause, I’m unable to summon the kind of argument that might persuade her to rethink her idea. “Ok,” I whisper, vanquished, “I’ll see you Tuesday, 10am.”

“Stop it,” I scold myself, walking to the car, “you should be grateful you have a phobia such as you do; grateful that you’ve so easily avoided the fear of adding up in public all your life.

“It’s not as if you have a phobia of…”

I look up, scouting about wildly with my blank brain “…sky.

“Be glad you only have a perverse form of arithmophobia,” I chide myself. “Even if it is compounded by technophobia, it’s still a teeny-tiny phobia, in the scale of things.

“And as such,” I decide bravely, “you should try once and for all to overcome this fear which is sliding around your innards like a snake.

“Do not think about when you worked in the garden centre for now,” I warn myself, “now is not the time. It’s fair to say no monkey could have operated that till, what with it being electronic — and beeping if you even so much as bloody breathed on it.”

Tuesday morning, 10am, in vintage shop. My friend takes me through the till. “You press the N/S button,” she instructs, jabbing it, “then key in your amount. Let’s try something simple… 20 [jab] plus 20 [jab]. Then press the decimal point button here [jab], then the 24 button…”

“24 button? Why am I pressing the 24 button?”

“You just do.”

“But…”

“Then the Final Amount button [jab]. And Bob’s your uncle!” she shouts as the till-drawer shoots out.

10.30am. My friend relinquishes all hope of me achieving Bob’s your uncle. Brandishing pen and paper from under the counter, she says “don’t worry, just use that,” and departs.

10.31am. The shop is empty. I am sitting, posture rigid, behind the till. I do not think of the garden centre, for now is not the time.

10.33am. I relax my shoulders.

10.34am. The shop has remained empty since 10.30; all is going extremely smoothly.

10.37am. The shop is still empty but I’m having strange thoughts. I cannot get the mythical Damocles out of my head. I keep thinking of him, the poor man, at the banquet, eating and drinking, but all the while aware of the sword that the tyrant Syracuse has suspended above his head, which dangles by a single hair.

10.40am. I practice on the till. Still no Bob’s your uncle.

10.43am. I have an increasing sense of ever-present peril. I cannot stop looking at the door and thinking of Damoclean swords.

10.44am. I’m thinking it will be a long day, reader, I’m thinking it will be a long day.