Alice Wyllie: Eeny, meeny, miney ... no!

SOMETIMES, when we were children, my parents would take my sister and I to a toy shop and allow us to pick a toy each as a special treat.

I would watch as Wyllie the Younger cased the Barbie aisle while I moped around somewhere near the Lego, rendered completely incapable of making a selection. It was the overwhelming choice that got to me. How, faced with wall after wall of tempting toys, could I be expected to pick just one?

I quickly came to the painful conclusion that it was easier to opt out of the whole sorry charade than to put myself through the agonies of making a decision. On the way home, I would sit miserably in the back of the car watching my sister brushing Malibu Barbie's hair with the disproportionately large pink comb that came in the box, envying her blissful ignorance as I sulked, empty-handed.

If only, I thought as I watched her help Malibu Barbie into her micro shorts, I too could flit through childhood so lightly, selecting toys as if it's the easiest thing in the world. How gleeful, I thought, to be so ignorant of the gravity of choice. At the same time, of course, Wyllie the Younger was probably looking over at her joyless, toyless sister and wondering when she'd lighten up a bit.

My inability to choose plagued me into young adulthood. In restaurants I would opt for whatever happened to come first on a menu rather than make a decision. I would then spend the first course staring longingly at my dining partner's choice, saturated in regret, until they offered to swap meals. A world leader would probably put less thought into sanctioning a nuclear attack.

And so I would limit my options to make life easier and frequently answered the question “What do you fancy doing today?” with an infuriating “I don't mind. What do you fancy doing today?”

Then one day, in my early 20s, something entirely unexpected happened. Fed up of my crippling inability to decide, I chose to make the choice to start choosing. Understand? I realised that if there's something you don't like about yourself, often it's not that hard to change it, and so I set about making choices with gay abandon. Coffee or tea? Heels or flats? Filet o' Fish or Egg McMuffin?

Today, choice is my friend. From a tray of cakes to a wall of books, shelves of shoes to rows of DVDs, I know what I want, and I'm not afraid to choose it. Oddly enough, however, this development has made me utterly intolerant of indecision. Shopping trips with Wyllie the Younger now consist of me sweeping the ladieswear floor and making three purchases before she's had time to ask for a size.

I'll then bark at her until she yields that the capri-length slim-fit trousers are so much more chic than the skinnies and if she can't see that then I can't help her, and would she please hurry up and make a decision because it's nearly lunchtime and I'm desperate for a Filet o' Fish?

The tables have finally turned and I'm rather enjoying revelling in it. I can't help but wish, however, that all those years ago, I could have just pulled it together and chosen that Malibu Barbie. Damn her and her disproportionately large comb. n