Walkies!

It's bad enough that I seem to have a face? Posture? Aura? Some invisible sign that I'm not aware of? Without Charlie encouraging all the weirdos, he can lay his hands paws on to come and harass me.

Charlie has this habit that, while on the face of it, seems adorable, becomes a PITA after a while: He thinks he knows EVERYONE! So he will stop and wait for that person to either come up and strokes him or carries on walking past him, but even then, sometimes, Charlie won't admit defeat. He will promptly trot after them in the vein, hope they will stop and turn around. "Aww, how cute." I hear you gush. No, it isn't! He's throwing me under the bus with his cuteness; it's a cunning plan on his part to draw some weirdo in.

"Sorry about that, mate. He thinks he knows everyone," I said to a guy about my age wearing a backpack and sporting a gammy eye. "I don't know him," came the response.

🧠 "Oh god! Here we go! I know you don't know him, we've never seen you before. Oh god, oh god."

I tried to walk on, but it was too late:

🎒 "I'm walking to New Cross."
🐶 "That's miles away, mate! It'll take hours! Catch the bus, look. The stop is right there."
🎒 "But they said at the hospital that the bus wasn't very reliable."

I'm not going to inflict the mental pain of the whole conversation on you; it's bad enough I had to go through it myself. Basically, he's talking about walking fifteen miles! However, if that wasn't crazy enough, he proceeded to tell me his son had told him if he could get himself to the appointment, he would drive from Sheffield and collect him. "What's wrong with that?" I hear you ask. Sheffield is eighty miles away! So that begs the question, if his son is going to do a 160-mile round trip, why doesn't he come down, take him to the appointment, wait for him and then bring him home? For some reason, he goes on to tell me how his son will lose his job in a month's time.

It gets worse; it always does. He reveals his next-door neighbour has given him a Taxi Cab gift card that will pay for his trip to the hospital. My brain is starting to frazzle now. Why the hell doesn't he use that? I try to get away. I have to go down a set of steps down the side of an embankment to get to my house, but backpack man doesn't give up! He continues to bellow at me down the hill and through the trees until finally, he has no choice but to give up and continue his fifteen-mile journey as the dense undergrowth finally obscures Charlie and me.

Do you want to know the final twist in the story? This 'Walking to New Cross' is a trial run; his appointment is next week! 😭 😭 😭

🎧 Oh, and yes. I was wearing headphones. Why do people insist on speaking to people wearing headphones? Is it some sort of challenge for them?
"I MUST GET THEIR ATTENTION! I'M NOT HAVING SOMEONE CACOON THEMSELVES."