Keep Walking

I’m alien to this custom of encountering an acquaintance and then learning about their day. And then going on to learn about their yesterday, and then learning about their future. I refuse your sonic temporal manipulation through benign information.  I’m more accustomed to a head nod or a fashionable contacting hand gesture of some sort – a handshake, a fist bump – and we keep walking, preferable in different directions. You are an acquaintance. We are not supposed to indulge in extensive communication of any sort. We are acquaintances. We shouldn’t have to even know one another’s names. We met, we understand we might pass one another in the building, and that’s where it ends. It’s like being force fed other people’s conversations when someone’s having a conversation on their cellphone, or whatever passes as a general conversation these days. A typical random cellphone call is a series of grunts, snorts; some folks even lick their screens or chew on their protective casing because it reminds them of a favorite pastry, followed by a status update or exchange of embarrassing photos. Dear god, people talk on those things while using the crapper. Your cellphone travels through your body faster than your own blood, yet what comes out the front end is the same that comes out the back.

Occasionally, however, these acquaintances provide a good story. A good story goes a long way. It can lift spirits. A good story could lead to a closer bond, but listening means they’ll come back with twenty more dull ones. But you know there’s a good one on the way eventually.

Plus, I might need these acquaintances to buy my stuff.

 

I still hate cellphones.