Sometimes, before I make my way up the mountain after work, I call in to the local Coles. It’s a colourful locale, full of a diverse cross section of the general society.
That’s code for, I think it’s full of people on ice.
I’m not a snob, you know that. I’m as rough as guts. I wear Ugg boots for God's sake.
But some of the people who frequent the shopping centre frighten even me. I don’t know if it’s the seventy year old ladies with full body tattoos, the men dressed in weeny shorts and nothing else except a pink, fluorescent beanie or maybe it’s the nine months pregnant teenagers walking around with no shoes on and a ciggie hanging out their mouths, swearing obscenities as they push the eight month old toddler in its stroller… but something unnerves me about the place.
Today, as I was buying my four dogs their three thousand dollars’ worth of weekly dog food, I saw a lady swaggering around the dog food aisle wearing a t-shirt with “ALL PEDOFILES SHOULD BE TORTURED” printed on it, right across her alarmingly swinging, massive boozookas.
I stood behind her later at the checkout, quietly pondering on whether I should politely inform her that ‘pedophiles’ was spelt incorrectly, but I thought better of it. She could have felled me with one vicious thrust of her upper torso.
Besides, maybe she actually meant ‘pedofiles’, as in, people who keep files on feet, or something.
Why she would want them to be tortured is a puzzle though.
Last week, after I’d just packed my groceries in the back of my car and had slithered into my seat, relieved I’d survived another shopping expedition in downtown Scaryville and was starting to back out of the park, I noticed there was a car which had pulled up behind me and parked, rudely blocking my exit.
“Here we go,” I thought in disappointment, “This is my first experience with road rage. This person is getting out of the car and will punch me through the window and I’ll be a vegetable for the rest of my life. I hope it’s quick and painless. I hope they’re not actually on ice and try to eat my face because that would definitely hurt.”
But the lady getting out of the car and coming towards me looked normal. Very normal actually, and she was smiling.
“Hello!” she grinned. “I thought I’d introduce myself. I’m Linda!”
It took me about five seconds of idiotic blinking with my mouth open before I realised who it was.
Linda!
I’ve been in contact via blogging and social media with Linda for about three years but we’d never met in real life. She’d spotted my car, Golden Boy!
Wow. How miraculous!
She’s gorgeous. Just like I thought she’d be.
I knew we’d meet one day.
This is why I love blogging. I have friends all over the world and that world is getting smaller every day.
But tell me, are you frightened by the ice epidemic? I see weird, unpredictable people around a lot more. Or am I just being an old lady?