27 Nov 2020

Walking the dog this morning, I nodded politely (as is my want) at a young lady walking on the opposite path, and a little further along the walk I became aware of her walking behind me.

She brightly announced “Morning Gorgeous!”. As I was trying to work out whether she was referring to me (not likely), or my dog (highly possible), deliberating whether this was in fact a person I’ve met before – and should have recognised, and was frantically trying to remember who it might be, I stopped and turned to give my response.

As I was mustering up the correct facial expression to greet a long lost friend or relative, my lips started to form the words “Hi!”, which I figured would cover anyone from someone I’d met at the coffee shop, someone I went to school with, or a member of my family, she then announced with great concern “Don’t tell me you’re still in hospital?!?!?!”

It was about this time that I realised she was talking via a hands-free headset on her phone, and her bright greeting and subsequent follow up was not addressed to me at all. Obviously I was walking by the river, and it’s not a hospital. Of course I then had to come up with some reason why I had turned around to face her, so I muttered something to the dog about possibly dropping my keys. The dog thought I was stupid, but the phone talker was blithely unaware, fully immersed in her conversion with the gorgeous person who was still in hospital.

It then appeared to be the morning for this sort of communication, because not too much further into our walk, we walked past a man who was having a very in-depth discussion – apparently with his dog – about the value of some shares.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have discussions with my dog all the time during our walks. They usually involve whether or not she would like to do a poo, whether she could pretty please stop sniffing at every single thing we walk past, and of course the typical one for this time of year “Oh dear you poor baby – do you have another prickle in your foot? Do you need Mummy to get it out again?”. I very rarely have discussions with her about financial investments. Quite frankly the share market isn’t her forte.

This man was waiting for responses in his financial conversation, and the dog was not contributing, so I could only assume he was talking on his phone via an earpiece of some description. His dog was more interested in smelling my dog’s bum.

I’ve never got into the whole ‘hands-free’ talking on the phone, unless I’m in the car, or waiting in a queue on the phone because ‘my call is very important to someone and will be answered as soon as possible’. But regardless of this, if I’m talking on my phone out in a public place there is always a chance that some poor innocent dog walker will think I’m talking to them. Obviously if I’ve got a phone held up to my ear, its very obvious, unlike my passersby this morning.

All this uninvolved communication this morning reminded me of an article recently about people making comments on internet posts about a particular person, and all the negative rubbish that people think they need to contribute. There is an old saying that said “opinions are like butt-holes – everyone’s got one, but we don’t need to hear from them”. Please be aware that I have edited the original word and replaced it with butt-holes just in case you’re liable to take offence. If you’re not, it was arse-holes.

If a topic is very relevant and involves you, by all means state your opinion. But if you are just blowing hot air out of your …… um…… well you know….. and the topic being discussed has nothing to do with you, maybe you just need to keep that thought to yourself.

Unless you’re writing literary diarrhoea, of course. All bets are off in that case.

Gotta go now – we have a church fete happening today, and I need to get my dog’s opinion on the Dow Jones before we leave.