7.3.12 Walking & Talking

Yesterday I went over the road to the local shop for a paper, a task that should take just a few minutes.  Crossing the road was not at all hazardous.  In fact, that was the safest part of the procedure.  More onerous (aside from stopping myself from decking the oh-so-slow twat who was not so much serving, as playing musical statues) was negotiating people on the move who were holding phones.

The first obstacle to my safe passage to the Cunt-op was a small woman (about the height of a mop) who was walking along the narrow path carrying, in her left hand, a mop and bucket.  Her right hand was at her right ear, and she was gassing with little regard for the rest of the world.  The 'rest of the world' included me, and my not unusual requirement to walk on the cuntin path without being assaulted.  She was perpendicular to the pavement on all planes.  In other words, she leaned neither to the left nor to the right, nor did she tilt forward or lean back.  Small as she was, she managed quite easily to stand upright.  Unfortunately her inanimate friend (the mop) had no such skill or attribute, and instead, it loafed at around 40 degrees to the norm/vertical line.  I therefore found myself clobbered by the mop handle as I tried to pass her.  She did not break her stride, nor did her mouth relent in its mission to talk for fucking England.  I said "Hey?" but to no avail.  I suspect it did not go in her left ear at all, so the blocked exit at her right ear was irrelevant.  I wondered whether to push her into the path of the next gravel lorry (I think it might have been potash, actually) but decided to avoid a 20-year stretch in jail.

I crossed the road, and approached the Cunt-op, but was nearly floored by a female of about twenty, who was not perpendicular to the pavement.  No, she was leaning forward, exiting the shop, and had her head slightly down whilst speaking into her mobile phone.  It fell to me to avoid being felled by her.  I side-stepped the oncoming article, who didn't break stride or her speech as she came out of the sliding door on to the pavement.

Some minutes later, I left the shop and checked left, then right, then left again: there was nothing coming, so I proceeded with care, looking and listening all the time.  This level of attention on my part was rather more than the effort given to crossing the main road!

...