Yesterday I walked up the ski hill in my neighborhood on my walk. It’s not much of an incline, but it’s steeper and longer than most of the hills in the neighborhood, plus it connects to a High School cross country running trail so it seemed like a nice diversion. As I was almost at the top a man and his dog were watching me. I saw his mouth move but since I had headphones in I couldn’t hear him.
“Pardon?”
“You don’t have a dog.”
“Nope.”
“You don’t like dogs?”
“I do like dogs, but I’m allergic.”
“Oh because sometimes when we see someone without a dog it’s because they don’t like them.”
“I think dogs are great, but they make me sneeze.”
He kept muttering something as I put the headphones back in, but I kept walking. It was a fine conversation, but it felt like he had started it long before I arrived.
When I emerged from the forest and back onto the road that goes around the park where the cross country course finishes, I noticed a car slowing down in front of me. A young man leaned across to the passenger side window and said:
“Is that a good place to run?”
“It’s ok, it’s a little short.”
“Where should I run?”
“Um, well, what are you looking for?”
“A view.”
I gave him some options and he drove off. Didn’t say thank you, just launched into his question, got the information he needed and drove off.
A week ago, a man approached me in Marshall’s.
“Would records fit in this crate?”
I blinked and sort of stared at him for a minute.
“Yes?”
“Ok, great.”
I’m not an aggressively smiley person. In fact, I often try to look unapproachable and I am apparently failing.
Logan M. Shannon 