You Talkin' To Me?

I’m taking Buddy for a walk in the afternoon. It’s like 4.15 in the afternoon. (use of like? 😬) It is sunny and fresh. It has been a lovely day, what we have seen of it. The sky is blue, there is a breeze.

Bud’s a slow walker now, bless him, so as it is slow going, I have learnt to write my journal, or poetry, or this blog on my phone as I walk along.

Sam and Bruno are up ahead, as Bruno, of course, walks at normal speed. Of course, he stops to sniff everything from fence posts to arseholes so it all works out in the end. Buddy, of course, stops to sniff everything too, but we usually catch up from time to time.

Suddenly, there is some guy who is having a dispute with the milk bar as we walk past, walking next to me. And he seems pretty insistent on telling me all about it. 

“They won’t let me off 6 bucks until tomorrow, how disgusting is that.”

The first thing I think is that he looks like Michael Jackson out of the Simpsons. Actually, the first thing I think is, where the fuck did you come from? (I was looking down at my phone) Then the Michael Jackson thing. It made me smile a smile I felt I had to stifle.

“How do you like that, won’t let me off 6 bucks until tomorrow?”

I don’t like it. I don’t think anything about it. What? I glanced around just in case he was talking to someone else. I was hoping he was talking to someone else.

“That was after I gave them all that change.”

I feel my eyebrows screw up in confusion.

“The other day,” he says.

Not sure that is the same thing, I think.

“We’ll that is the last time I do them a favour.”

I’m pretty sure you mean you exchanged change for notes.

“I can’t believe that. It’s bloody disgusting. Don’t you think that is disgusting?”

I am pretty sure that I don’t care, mate.

“Would you do them any favours after that?”

I’m not sure you did them any favours in the first place.

“I should tell them the other thing when he hit on my girlfriend when there were kids around.”

This has taken an unexpected turn, I think, but even with that bit of added titillation, I still don’t care, mate.

“Yeah, I’m sure they’d like that, wouldn’t they?”

I’m not sure what we are even talking about now?

“I’m never doing them a favour ever again.”

Ah, back to the non favour.

Buddy, fortunately, stops to sniff something, thank you Bud.

“Sometimes you think you know someone,” he says over his shoulder.

I’m wondering if he now puts me in that category?

“Fuck them!” As he walks off, he gives out what you might call a primal scream.

Buddy looks up from the bushes he is sniffing, looks at me, looks at the guy walking away, looks back at me, then goes back to sniffing.

I never said a word.