So I dropped The Prata Boy at kindy today, and on the way home I felt I needed a boost, so I swung through the servo near his school and decided, after not much deliberation, on an iced coffee. Caffeine. Sugar. The sort of formula that gets you through the day.

But whilst I was standing at the register waiting to pay, the magazine rack caught my eyes and I thought, "Ooh, maybe that's what I want." Little brightly-coloured mind-candy, you know. Something to stimulate the imagination and excite the appetite of the soul. So I looked through the options to see what I should buy.

The teen genre was an easy pass. Awkward questions about boys and periods are *cough* half a lifetime behind me now. And I've been married thirteen years this week, so the bridal magazines weren't exactly topical to me. The conception and pregnancy stuff has lost its relevance, and the parenting ones seemed to be aimed at rank beginners, so I left them on the shelf, too. We've completed our home renovation as of a couple of weeks ago, and I've already thrown my small library of research into the bin with a sigh of triumph and relief, so I moved past those offerings quickly. The homemaker magazines made me pause, as did the one on personal finance, but a closer inspection revealed no promise of anything that might interest me except what I'd already been over many times before. I stared, without compulsion, at the travel section, happy with my holiday plans for the next twelve months and not really wanting to glimpse any further.

And I thought, this is where I'm at, then. I'm at the place where I don't know which lifestyle magazine I should buy.

Then the woman behind the counter said, "Hello, Ma'am, just the iced coffee, is it?"

And I said, "Yes."