I’m beginning to wonder if there is a tattoo on my head that everyone can see except me. If so, It obviously says something along the lines of, “Stranger. Please talk to me, and overshare if possible”, or “I am desperate for you to tell me something about yourself, the more menial, the better”. (Whichever it is, I sure hope I didn’t pay for these tattoos by the letter.)
I want to be friendly; I really do. But some people seem to want to unload as if I am the first person they have spoken to in months.
To be fair, I know it’s not just me they aim for, debunking my tattoo theory straight away. No, a section of society obviously thinks a complete stranger would give an ounce of fuck about their lives.
I was in Tesco the other day (always a chore, never a pleasure). At the checkout, the woman in front of me decided the perfect time to answer her ringing mobile phone was during the bit where she had to pay. How selfless of her.
So, there’s me, trying out different ways to look pissed off and tutting as loudly as I could without making my eyes bleed, having to listen to her talk to someone about being under lock-down and when it finishes and blah, blah, blah – obviously a conversation that could not wait an extra two minutes until she was out of the shop.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, when she decided that her critical call should finish and the queue had grown to six deep, she felt the need to talk through her conversation with the person working the till, emphasizing that she was talking to her son who lives in Amsterdam. “Yes, Amsterdam, my son, yes, he lives there.”
Wow, does he work at the UN? Perhaps he is a world-famous scientist who needed to impart some critical information at that very second to you because you work for the government? No? Maybe, he just got fed up with your constant talking that he moved to another country a few years back to get away?
We live in a world of billions of people, and we can’t all be interesting, especially if we are doing daytime shopping in Tesco. So, the next time I am out and about, and someone wants to start telling me all about themselves – or their views on Covid and how they know more than the scientists because they heard ‘this thing’ on Talk Radio – I shall point to my forehead and tell them that this here tattoo is spelt wrong. Hopefully, they will then think I am a little bit deranged and leave me alone.
