t'was a rite of passage the first mag purchase
select a newsagent in a different part of town
case the joint to make sure it's not too busy
suss out whether the shop owner was a bored old person (didn't want to be buying 'Escort' off some 19 year old shop assistant)
get in, select mag, select broad sheet newspaper
purchase, wrap n roll, run
ah, thems was the days
---------
First time I bought condoms I was mid purchase when a second shop assistant wandered back to the shop floor with a cheery 'hiya 65', it was Anne, the woman from across the road from my mum's house. Now, these days, that sounds like a porn film plot. Back then I nearly died of embarrassment.
Worse still, by the time I got the chance to use the third one of the pack a year later, the date had expired.