a creature of habit

Every Saturday morning I trundle down to Footscray Market to do the shopping. I’ve been doing this for just over two years. I guess I must be a bit of a fixture but I did not realise it was this obvious.
Today I decided to mix it up a little and arrived earlier than usual. I go to my deli: “Hello, you’re earlier than usual”. I go to the greengrocer: “You’re here early today!” I go to another greengrocer: “You’re early today. Where are the kids?” (I used to shop with my friend Dave and his two children here every weekend before they moved away and even though they’ve been long gone I still get asked about “my” kids!) Finally, I make it to my last stall: “You’re here early. Usually when you arrive I know it’s half an hour until I can go home”.
Hmmmm, not today I guess! And if this was not enough, then the husband of the woman on the stall says: “How was dinner the other night?” “Huh??”, says I. “I saw you going into the Vietnamese restaurant on the corner.” “It was fine”. (Are there no secrets??)
The last straw came as I made a break for the exit. I was idlely musing about the possibility of upgrading my shopping trolley to a fancy new number I had seen during my travels when I hear “Hello, Madam. Don’t I normally see you later at the Latino cafe?”
If I had known that turning up three quarters of a hour early was going to cause such trauma among the fine folk of Footscray Market I would have saved myself the trouble and stayed in bed.