I do think I tread too softly most of the time. I don't mean this is any kind of metaphorical sense, I literally am just a bit light on my feet (which I realise is one of those curious euphemisms for homosexuality, like "puddle jumper" or "he's good with colours", but that isn't what I am implying). I have no idea how to remedy this, apart from wearing clumpy Herman Munster shoes, which I suppose I could try. I'll update this if I get some and they make a difference.
Anyway, I get reminded of this pretty much every time I have to walk from a place to a different place. Yesterday, I was visiting a friend (who claims he is a druid, but that's another story) who lives only about fifteen minutes walk away, and in that time I managed to get in three (three!) separate awkward encounters due to my status as a "softstepper" (it is fine if you have Ini Kamoze's 1994 hit "Here Comes The Hotstepper" in your head now, as it was kind of my intention. Best not to draw parallels between me and Ini though).
So, yeah, first one: I was walking along and could see these two teenagers, a boy and a girl, having fun, you know like kind of dancing and giggling and like sort of dodging each others grabs and that. And as we all know, seeing other people having fun is terribly rude and insulting. As I drew close to them, the boy had his back to me and "dodged" right into my path. Luckily, I have been trained in the correct "Portsmouth man" response to this kind of situation, so I kind of pushed this dude's backpack and marched past while muttering "prick". Point to me, I think you'll find.
At this point I thought it would be wise to stay off the main thoroughfare, so I turned down a residential back street. Things seemed to be going swimmingly and I got faintly distracted because somebody had written "where oh where did that fishy go?" on the road in chalk, and I couldn't remember which Monty Python film that was from ("Meaning of Life", I believe).
But then I realised I was walking kind of uncomfortably closely behind this middle-aged woman. And what do you do in that situation? I was like five feet behind her and she had clearly not noticed me, and at my then walking pace I would have slowly sailed past her like an awkward barge or a socially inept catamaran. Do I speed up and walk past, pretending that I'm in a hurry somewhere? If I do that, I have to keep up the same uncomfortably swift pace all the way to the end of the road, otherwise I look weird(er). Do I slow my pace to slightly slower than her? That would take ages to get to where I'm going, and if she noticed me after that I would also look strange. In the end, the only available course of action was to do a little conspicuous cough (and there's a knack to that too - you have to kind of make it sound like you do have a real cough, but at the same time not that you have tuberculosis) while I was pretending to find somebody's front garden really interesting. It sort of worked, because she did notice me then, but she also did a little gasp, clutched her handbag closer to her chest and briskly crossed the road. I don't think I looked like a mugger, but it is better to be safe than sorry I suppose, and it did mean I could carry on walking at a comfortable pace. Another point to me.
I was nearly at my destination at this juncture of our narrative, so I relaxed a little, which was a mistake. I ambled past a local antique shop, which had some of their stock out on the pavement, including a life-size gold cow, which admittedly was rather interesting. A woman also apparently found it interesting, as she showed by turning and bellowing in my face "LOOK AT THE COW!" as I was about three feet away from her. I sort of nodded and mumbled in agreement, but she looked at me like I was the one behaving oddly. Probably, as I realised at this point, because she was actually speaking to her boyfriend, who was behind me. I had managed to slip in between a couple without either of them noticing. I'm not sure who won this round, but its my blog, so lets say it was me. 3-0! Come on!
The problem is, I can't think of a useful application of this skill, apart from ninja, as the title suggests. And I would be bloody rubbish as a ninja, what with the whole murdering noblemen thing. I suppose if they needed someone to sneak up and eavesdrop I could do that. Actually, is MI5 hiring at the moment?
Anyway, I arrived at my destination, and had a cup of tea and a chat about magic mushrooms, which was nice.
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