Can I just ask you one question?

This is how it happened.

"Can I just ask you one question?"

That's all she said to me. It was enough of a distraction to make me slow down. (No No No NO…! Keep walking!!)

The trolley full of shopping stopped and lost its forward momentum… (Arrgh…bloody hell…here she comes! No eye contact!!)

I looked at her. (STEE YU PID ...I said "no eye contact"!!)

"Would YOU like to look 10 years younger?" She said.

"Who wouldn't?" I answered … (Dammit, don't engage her! Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!)

She takes my hand and starts to rub some Green slimy gritty stuff onto the back of it. (WTF!!…Unwanted Physical contact AND an unknown gooey substance! PULL AWAY! If she doesn't let go, PUNCH HER!!)

Slowly…almost mesmerizingly, she rubs the grit in small relaxing little circles…. "This 100% natural product is formulated from seaweed, sea salt and emu oil and it is 100% Australian owned and manufactured"…. (Freaking heck…she's appealing to your Aussie-ness…don't listen to her voice, she'll hypnotize you!)

"With twice daily applications, here, here and here…" …her soft hand comes up and touches my face around my eyes, nose and mouth….I can't help but look at her flawless ,19 year old, make-up –less face. I gaze into her shining blue eyes… (No….don't look directly into her eyes! NOT HER EYES!!!!)

"This cleanser, coupled with our Echidna sweat based moisturizer, is only $79.99 for the 30g jar…and with that you get the Kangaroo Scrotum buffer pad FREE!"… (You don't NEED a buffer pad….Just because it's FREE doesn't make it GOOD….Back away NOW….NOOOO! NOOOOO! Don't get out your Credit card…..Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!")

This is what SHOULD have happened.

"Can I just ask you one question?"

"Yes you can…and Honey, you just wasted that one question right then…! Bye-bye now!

Don’t thank me...Thank the laws.

So, I am driving along listening to Justin Timberlake & T.I singing "Dead & Gone"…… "I turn my head to da East…laaa…daa…laa laa….-body…by my side…" and I come up to a Pedestrian crossing.

There are 2 guys standing there waiting to cross. I slow down and stop as per the road laws of Australia, Queensland and probably most of the civilized world.

As I look, I realized that the guys waiting to cross the road are what you would call your every day "Druggies". Unkempt hair, badly dressed (faded long Board shorts, a ripped neck t-shirt and oversized collared shirt of some description, teamed with brand new expensive running shoes and no socks), scabs and sores all over their exposed body parts….and a whacked out glazed expression on their pale grey sunken eyed faces that does not allow them to open their eyes fully or close their mouths at all.

I sit there as they stare and try to figure out whether my car is still moving or not. They cautiously take a step out and to my utter enjoyment, get a little freaked out with the black and white lines on the crossing. Clearly the road markings are playing havoc with their "enhanced" perception because when they walk, one leg seems to move as it's told, while the other leg is confused and takes turns making SMALL steps…and then BIG steps. Meanwhile, the arms have drawn the hands up near their chests so they don't get in the way of walking. The aiming and steering for a straight line seems to be done by the tongue.

As they near the other side of the road, one of them put on his most civilized charming missing toothed smile…..turns around to walk backwards and waves at me saying…"Thanks Love".

I sit there and I do that…"I don't want to seem impolite and not smile "type smile where you press your lips together and only do a half smile type of thing. I give a little cursory "lift the finger off the steering wheel" wave, because I don't want these guys to mug me 2 months down the track.

What these guys don't realize is….it's not my "niceness" that made me stop at the Pedestrian crossing to let them cross. The LAW had made me stop.

Don't THANK me for obeying the law.

If it wasn't for the …"No running people over" or the "have to let people cross the road safely at the crossing "laws….. The fact that there may be witness' AND I was worried about damaging my car….

 

…I would have run your druggy ass down.