a peculiar species

This evening I have once more been reminded of the peculiarities of the human race.
Now some people will now that I have a fondness for supermarkets. I know that I shouldn't. But I do. This evening I popped down to Tesco to buy some dates and some chocolate. Originally I had wanted bananas, but they'd sold out. Anyway. I was in the queue waiting to pay, when I noticed something of a disagreement in the queue ahead of me. Withing seconds, two fifty something year-old men were threatening to knock each other out. As the men came in my direction, I instinctively tried to restrain one of the men, while thankfully, another passer-by restrained the other guy.

Now I'm not trying to make myself out to be some sort of a hero - I just followed my instincts. I've broken up a few fights in my time, thats to be expected as a youth worker. But I have to admit I've never stood between two feuding fifty year olds. It really was rather strange.

I later found out that this whole fiasco had been caused by one of the men passing comment on how long the other was taking to pack and pay for his and his wife's shopping. I mean really, come on. Does it matter? Your fifty, but you're acting like you're fifteen.

On arriving home, I found myself watching a rather bizarre programme called A Week of Dressing Dangerously. Basically, some fashion expert, forced a housewife and mother of two, to parade around her local community in a range of ridiculous fashion disasters, culminating in a bunny girl outfit.

The point of this programme, as far as I could tell, was to help this poor woman learn something about herself and who she is, by reflecting on the fact that wearing different clothes caused her to act differently in a range of everyday situations. Wearing these different clothes 'liberated' her and helped her explore certain hidden aspects of her personality.

I don't want to go into the pschology of the programme, because I don't know an awful lot about psychology. But this programme intrigued me. Not only did it make me cringe every other minute, it also got me wondering about where people find there identity. It showed just how much this woman's behaviour changed depending on what she was wearing. It was almost as though the clothes she wore defined who she was and how she behaved.

Now I know that many people like to express their identity in the clothes they choose to wear, but I have a confession to make. I found it more than a little disturbing that this programme seemed to preach so blatently that your identity is defined solely by what you wear.

As I reflect on the events of this evening, I realise once again, that us humans are a funny lot.