not connected to the writing

One of those things I occasionally wonder is the question of when people who work in shops get to go to the shops, especially those people whose shops are open late on late-night-shopping evenings when people who work (but not in shops) get to go to shops after work. A particular type of shop I needed to get to this evening turns out to not only not open late on late-night-shopping evening but also seemed to have closed slightly earlier than normal, seemingly almost unanimously across an entire district with only one exception which was just bolting its doors as I approached after wandering past the long-since-bolted-shut doors of some of the other local shops of the same shop-type, unfortunately having apparently chosen to visit them in the wrong order. If they're not going to be open at a perfectly reasonable time then I'm not going to buy stuff from them, though without leaving Post-Its on their doors advising them of their closure at the time of my visit, wondering at their seemingly reduced hours and questioning whether there's some sort of email newsletter one can request to receive which indicates when all retailers of a specific type have been ordered to dramatically curtail their hours, perhaps to allow the owners and staff of that particular item-sector to visit other shops every once in a while but possibly just to irritate people who happen to choose that day to try and buy something from them.