Noticing
Catching the bus this morning, I noticed the young Asian woman reading a copy of The Bible, while the middle-aged Caucasian man in front of her was reading The Da Vinci Code.
When I went to get my shoes repaired, I noticed the look on the bloke’s face that said he didn’t want to repair my shoes even before I brought them out of the bag. You could just tell repairing shoes was something he hated doing, a sideline in his business. And I just knew he was going to say they were going to be unrepairable – even though I thought they were – even before I showed them to him. I’m looking for a better shoes repair man, by the way.
I noticed the blank looks on the faces of the people in the various shops I went to, looking for a mini coaxial cable connector, to lengthen the lead for my Foxtel connection. “You want USB?, they all said blankly.
I noticed the look of satisfaction on the face of the assistant who made my a “Hotdog with the works” at Harry’s Cafe de Wheels. You could just see how proud she was to have put so much food on such a small bun.
I noticed the look of frustration on the face of the bloke in Bing Lee who gave me a discount on my mini coaxial cable connector, but then who couldn’t get me through the cashier, because the woman in front of me was paying off a plasma (or something) with a fist-full of ten dollar notes which needed recounting.
I also noticed the dismissive look on the face of the woman I bought shoes from, when I told her the pair she had selected for me were not large enough. “Can you try again to fit them?”, he she said to me, to which I replied, “No they don’t fit”. The look on her face was quite dismissive, as if I hadn’t tried hard enough to make them fit.
And I noticed the look of fear on the faces of other commuters on the bus today when a rather smelly looking shady character got on the bus looking for a seat on the way home. “Don’t sit next to me”, I could hear them saying to themselves in a Homer-like inner voice. Of course, he sat next to me.
All in all, I “noticed” a lot of things today. Possibly too much? Maybe it’s my new glasses?
Yup – best not wear the glasses while commuting… you need dark glasses and an ipod so you can’t see or hear your fellow commuters.
There’s an excellent, but expensive, shoe repairer in the Strand Arcade between Grge and Pitt Sts in the city. They fixed up my shoes that two others had deemed unrepairable.
Beautiful post!