I’ve found a way of disappearing almost completely from sight. I live in the centre of a reasonably large town and like to shop in the town without making my arms any longer than they need be by carrying heavy bags. So I bought a shopping bag on wheels.
All of a sudden I’ve become completely invisible, that’s me on the left of the drawing. Not there? Yes I am but your not looking at me. You ‘re looking at the shopping trolley and thinking this is some old geezer who I will not bother giving my flyers to, I’ll not bother to accost to sign up for charitable donations ( believe me they are chugger: charity mugger proof ). Yes the shopping trolley turns me into the invisible man.
Now I’m not that old and I try to look presentable when wandering the local streets, I’m also i.t. savvy! I know about all sorts of things, I can find my way around most computers and I’m an apple mac devotee. There was a time when I even bought magazines with pictures of them and whistled to myself at the power of these beasts. Look at the ‘ram’ on that one I’d say to my wife. She treated me and the comment as if I had a shopping trolley behind me. In this case quite right too. I’ve got over it.
But now when I wander into a techie shop ( in a moment of weakness ) with my trolley, and a reasonable amount of spending power, he looks over my shoulder to see if there’s someone younger and poorer to chat about computers with.
Worse, if I should enter a mobile phone shop, I have the feeling that they might calls security to get me out of there ( or at least my shopping trolley ‘cos they can’t see me ) as it might make there place look at little less than ‘cool’.