The Wandering Mind

Open all hours

It is now over two years since I started regularly going to Chapel every Sunday and I have always thought it would be a question of time before one Sunday morning the Chapel doors would be thrown open and I would be out on the street with a flea in my ear. I just don't understand why our Chapel bother with people like me. The trouble is when I get to Chapel I find it difficult to concentrate, my mind keeps wandering.

The other Sunday, there was our Preacher in full cry and yet I found myself thinking, 'What a lovely venue our Chapel would make for a Country and Western Concert'. It seems to me some venues are made for certain events. Recently I suggested the 21 Room at the Methwold Social Club was an ideal place for a Service; the trouble was I was the only one who thought so. Another Sunday and another Preacher and again my mind wandered. It occurred to me that our Chapel was only open one hour per week and, being a Basil Fawlty of Fawlty Towers fan, I took this to it's logical conclusion. I thought it would be a good idea if I opened a shop in Methwold. But instead of it being open one hour per week it would be closed all the time. I can just see a customer knocking on the locked door and me widely gesticulating behind the curtains, 'can't you see we are closed'.

And I can visualise stickers on my shop window proclaiming, 'sale now on massive reductions', but nothing would be sold in the shop that was never opens. I can see another sticker that would advise potential customers that the shop would be closed for two weeks from July 1st for staff holidays and this would of course beg the question, just how many staff would you want in a shop which didn't open. Yet another sticker would suggest 'we aim to please'; to which some wag would write underneath, 'you must be joking'. The more I think about all of this the more certain I am that I'm on a winner. After all a shop that never opens wouldn't need to spend money on heating, lighting, staff, etc.; in fact the outlay would be nil.

Now I know some clever clogs would say yes but the income would be nil as well. But you are not losing money! And how many businesses can claim that in these difficult trading days? Of course, I could forget all of this and just start concentrating when I go to Chapel. Failing that some would suggest I should be locked up; yes but who with? My first choice would be Carol Vorderman; after all I have always been interested in figures, especially hers.

Les Lawrence