Nowadays people eat while doing things. You see eating going on everywhere. In the library. Crossing the street. While buying food. In church,and Post office. Even Real Estate agents are eating continuously now. Lawyers eat while being presented by briefs. On TV ads you now also see large models being featured. They too eat while lounging in a Norwegian chair. This morning I watched a mother parking two young children in a child-minding place. She had a sandwich clutched between her teeth while undoing their harnesses. People eat while driving.
Cars now have twin-cup holders at front and back. Some cars have refrigerated glove boxes. They keep TV dinners in there. I heard that special mini micro-waves can be plugged in the car for some quick cooking of pizzas or sides of pork. Eating while working go hand in hand (or more likely in mouth.) Of course eating food involves the buying of it. The most normal combination is eating while shopping. What can be more convenient? The shopping cart is being filled with yet more food.
With my iPhone now used to count steps we went for a walk to town and back. Milo is getting older in tandem with us. We break our walk in town with a small latte. In winter we do rug up. Carrying coats and wearing gloves and scarf we started around 11am. During our latte stop-over we counted 2600 steps. Not bad. We resumed back again with the three of us having had a rest. Helvi decided to walk seriously and sprinted ahead of me. I can’t do that with Milo. He wants to sniff every bit of greenery before the obligatory leg-up. It makes some people smile. Often they will ask permission to pat Milo. He is indifferent to patting. He is spoiled. I wish I could get those pats. One woman who I asked for a pat said; ‘if you were as good looking as Milo you too would get patted’. A cruel world out there.
It was when Helvi went around the next corner I noticed a fast walking young women pushing a food loaded trolley past me and Milo. It has always irked me to find abandoned shopping trolleys. Was she a shopping trolley dumper? She had all the hallmarks of one. They have an arrogance about them. She did not give Milo a look. Not a good look! She stopped at her car and opened the door. Of course, needless to say, she ripped a packet of something and fed some of its contents into her mouth. Milo was busy sniffing a bit of garden belonging to the United Church. I turned my back to this young woman unloading her shopping trolley. I wanted her to be relaxed and not feel being surveyed by an elderly chagrined looking man. I so desperately wanted to know if she had the decency to return the trolley. Would my summation of her being a shopping trolley dumper be correct?
Milo, in the meantime was sniffed out and wanted to know where Helvi had disappeared to. The girl had unloaded the trolley and slammed the car door. What next? I slowly walked by and deliberately dropped a paper hanky on the pavement. This gave me time to observe what she was doing with the trolley. I bend down to pick up the paper hanky while hoping she would be able to recognise the civility and obligation of someone not littering the footpath. I was pleasantly relieved to see she walked with the trolley across the road. Was I so mistaken? Why do I so often see the bad sides of people? Am I so negative?
The woman crossed the road with the trolley and lifted it in the ‘nature strip’. She walked back to her car and drove off. She was a trolley dumper. I could have smacked her. But she was across the road. I am thinking of getting some wheel-clamps.
I was vindicated after all. The iPhone told us we did well over 6000 steps. That has to be good.
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