A sampling of humanity
Nov. 1st, 2008 07:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stephbgToday I write of three human encounters: one pleasant, one mysterious, and one survived.
1. The girl at the bakery
One of my occasional treats is a small apple pie from the bakery at the nearest large shopping centre. By definition, weeks can go by without me even going to this place. However, it's the only thing I ever buy there. One of the girls who works there casually often goes more than a month without seeing me. Despite that, we've passed beyond the "The regular? A small apple pie, right?" stage, on through "Hi! The regular?" to today's smile as she saw me approaching and had reached for the pie before I got to the counter.
2. The president of the RSPCA at the dog beach
Call it name-dropping if you wish, but I was greeted this afternoon on the beach by Lyn, the RSPCA President with whom I've shared office space for quite a while. I didn't recognise the greeting at first, not because I didn't recognise her, but because I didn't realise the handwaving and general yoo-whoo-ing a couple of feet from my face was directed at me rather than the two soggy labradors happily investigating my cat-fur-encrusted self.
Thank god for sunglasses, for I know I stared dumbly at her for at least a couple of seconds while different bits of my brain warred with alternative social interpretations of her behaviour. Fortunately contact was made, we briefly compared notes on the fierceness of the wind, and then we made off in opposite directions.
3. The astonishingly stupid moron in the beach carpark
Whitfords Node carpark is a pretty good carpark as these things go. It's quite big, has lots of shade, good visibility, and plenty of room for manouvering and passing. Under normal circumstances. Not, however, when some boofy bloke in an L-plated car stuffed full of mates comes screaming down the access road, swerving around corners fast enough to challenge the suspension and then full bore towards me on the wrong side of the roadway. The driver seemed much too old for Ls; perhaps he was "teaching" someone *shudder*.
Fortunately it was the empty end of the carpark and I was able to swerve into the parking spaces on the left to avoid him. Without that option (and my lovely lovely responsive Catmobile) it would have been head-on for certain at a combined speed of perhaps 70kph. He either didn't or couldn't make any effort to avoid me, for he continued fast and wobbly down the wrong side of the road for the couple of seconds I bothered to watch in my rear vision mirror.
I toyed briefly with the idea of turning around to follow and confront for a bit of old-fashioned road rage, then recalled the "car full of mates" bit--and my own alleged veneer of civilisation--and left him to wallow in his own filth. You sir, are beneath my notice. Ptooey!
On the way home I counted my additional blessings, for having just been for a walk on the beach I was without phone, money, ID, pen, paper...
I'm surprisingly unshaken by the experience, once past the "HOLY CRAP!" stage. Maybe I've run out of shake, or perhaps I'm proud of a successful bit of defensive driving. In hindsight it *was* just a teensy bit fun, and a perfect justification for the always-safety-conscious slalom practice around certain speedhumps of my acquaintance.
1. The girl at the bakery
One of my occasional treats is a small apple pie from the bakery at the nearest large shopping centre. By definition, weeks can go by without me even going to this place. However, it's the only thing I ever buy there. One of the girls who works there casually often goes more than a month without seeing me. Despite that, we've passed beyond the "The regular? A small apple pie, right?" stage, on through "Hi! The regular?" to today's smile as she saw me approaching and had reached for the pie before I got to the counter.
2. The president of the RSPCA at the dog beach
Call it name-dropping if you wish, but I was greeted this afternoon on the beach by Lyn, the RSPCA President with whom I've shared office space for quite a while. I didn't recognise the greeting at first, not because I didn't recognise her, but because I didn't realise the handwaving and general yoo-whoo-ing a couple of feet from my face was directed at me rather than the two soggy labradors happily investigating my cat-fur-encrusted self.
Thank god for sunglasses, for I know I stared dumbly at her for at least a couple of seconds while different bits of my brain warred with alternative social interpretations of her behaviour. Fortunately contact was made, we briefly compared notes on the fierceness of the wind, and then we made off in opposite directions.
3. The astonishingly stupid moron in the beach carpark
Whitfords Node carpark is a pretty good carpark as these things go. It's quite big, has lots of shade, good visibility, and plenty of room for manouvering and passing. Under normal circumstances. Not, however, when some boofy bloke in an L-plated car stuffed full of mates comes screaming down the access road, swerving around corners fast enough to challenge the suspension and then full bore towards me on the wrong side of the roadway. The driver seemed much too old for Ls; perhaps he was "teaching" someone *shudder*.
Fortunately it was the empty end of the carpark and I was able to swerve into the parking spaces on the left to avoid him. Without that option (and my lovely lovely responsive Catmobile) it would have been head-on for certain at a combined speed of perhaps 70kph. He either didn't or couldn't make any effort to avoid me, for he continued fast and wobbly down the wrong side of the road for the couple of seconds I bothered to watch in my rear vision mirror.
I toyed briefly with the idea of turning around to follow and confront for a bit of old-fashioned road rage, then recalled the "car full of mates" bit--and my own alleged veneer of civilisation--and left him to wallow in his own filth. You sir, are beneath my notice. Ptooey!
On the way home I counted my additional blessings, for having just been for a walk on the beach I was without phone, money, ID, pen, paper...
I'm surprisingly unshaken by the experience, once past the "HOLY CRAP!" stage. Maybe I've run out of shake, or perhaps I'm proud of a successful bit of defensive driving. In hindsight it *was* just a teensy bit fun, and a perfect justification for the always-safety-conscious slalom practice around certain speedhumps of my acquaintance.
