Friday. The greatest day of the week. The day you start to feel the life slowly resuscitate itself back into your cold, life-less body. Unfortunately on this particular Friday I had to venture into the supermarket to buy the Canadian the doughnuts he likes (the ones with the m & m’s sprinkled all over the top). When I had found what I needed to, I proceeded to the check-out and had to make the decision between the self-check-out aisle, where something always goes wrong and the fast-lane. Choose your own adventure. Seeing the fast-lane coincides with the way I live my life (ha) and maybe because it was free, I scooted over and proceeded to empty the contents of my basket onto the small space between me and “Sam”. BUM-BOM- Sam’s a chatter ! “How was your day?” “What are you up to this weekend?” “Where do you work?” “What is your take on Global Warming?” Christ Sam are you planning on stalking me? Does he really think he’s going to find some kind of affinity in my answers?: “No way! Me too! I think you are my long-lost sibling”. That’s far fetched.
I get really embarrassed; I don’t want to talk about my day with a total stranger. I don’t want to tell him what I’ve been up to but out of politeness I'm forced to share this information as the alternative would make me seem inappropriately rude and impudent:
Sam: “What have you been up to today?”
Me: “Nothing, leave me alone”
Or (in reality)
Sam (in annoying, keener voice): “What have you been up to today?
Me (in an extremely non-commital, nonchalant tone) : “oh just working” (rookie mistake)
Sam (perks up): “Where do you work?”
Me ( hiding epic groan): “Oh over in ****”
Sam : “Oh really what do you do there?”
Me (rubbing eyes in attempt to stop them rolling): “I teach”
Sam: “What do you teach?”
Me: “English”
Sam: “What are you up to this weekend?”
Me: “ Not much”
Sam: “that sounds a bit boring you must be doing something?”
Me: “actually my friends getting married”
Sam: “Oh wow, really? Where is the wedding?”
And so on and so forth until the eftpos machine gives its approval.
I’m not rude, I’m quite lovely, really, I pride myself on being so. But Sam, really why do you ask SO much of me? We’re strangers, we have no affinity, please just ask me how I am and move on; I’m ok with that. Really. I don’t want anything more from you, this is not a trick, deep down we both know where we stand. It’s not you, it’s me, I get shy in front of strangers and for some unknown reason I feel uncomfortable divulging any more than a, "good thanks" with people who I haven’t even been introduced to. Let’s not make this awkward Sam, I’ll just choose the self check-out aisle and we’ll pretend that this never happened. And one day, when I’m ready, maybe I’ll venture into someone else’s lane, and you’ll be ok with that, cos really, deep down you want me to be happy.
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