Under the Goggles: The Story Behind The Title

So, every Sunday for a couple of months now, I've worked for a very large comic shop located near Tottenham Court Road. You know the one. Yeah, there are comic shops with more indie street cred, but I'm loyal. I was poor and new to London, and they gave me a job. Plus, I get wicked discount.

There's a uniform, but the managers don't mind if you decide to jazz up the look. Neon eyeliner, Watchmen pin badges - you get the picture. My boyfriend's got a pair of flying goggles that he picked up at a market in Belarus of all places, (most people just use Ebay). Worn on the top of my head they do a great job of keeping my hair out of my face at work.

Now I happen to think that these goggles are pretty cool. You say aged WWII veteran - I say Tank Girl. It turns out the customers think they are pretty cool, too. In fact, I get a bit of attention wearing them. One guy in particular was more persistant than most: telling me he likes my look, chatting about Girl Genius, holding up the queue to ask which steampunk novels I like... He's kind of annoying and almost certainly flirting with me, but hey, that's not a crime. Next time he comes in, he acts the same way.

The time after that, I'm not wearing the goggles. An ignored alarm clock has left me with barely enough time to dress before leaving the house, let alone accessorise. I'm not looking too great, really. Neither is S, my co-worker. She stayed out late last night, I'm coming down with a cold, neither of us enjoy being at work on a Sunday. We struggle on, bravely. The same guy comes in. He buys some Marvel Civil War graphic novels, I sniffle my way through a transaction and notice that he's not as talkative as usual. Maybe he's having a bad day too.

As he walks away, he looks back at S and me. We hear him announce, very loudly to his friend, "Bring back the one with the goggles, that's what I say."

...

And thus, the name of this blog was born. (And thus, a righteous outrage that probably bored poor S to tears all afternoon was born, but I calmed down eventually.)

This is what that customer failed to see. This is me, underneath the goggles.

These are my thoughts on gaming, on politics, on comics and science fiction and a wide variety of other fiction. A collection of articles on the geek lifestyle and culture. I'm blogging the third counter-culture, kids.

What a load of pretentious bollocks.

Let's just see where we end up, shall we?