Every day I see or hear at least one thing that makes me look, or listen, twice, because it’s not something I was expecting. Here are the unusual things I’ve seen so far this year, this leap year, when there will be 366 days. A bonus unusual thing.
1st Jan: The housing tenants across the street welcomed the new year with coprolalia.
2nd Jan: A thin dirty woman in a mini-skirt, ankle socks slipping into her clogs, was walking past the video store, hugging the glass wall. She stopped to pick up a dead half-cigarette, pulled out a lighter, lit the cigarette and smoked it.
3rd Jan: Neighbour no. 1 phoned and neighbour no. 2 emailed to tell us that neighbour no. 3 is a police informer with a gun.
4th Jan: My son’s new employer, a jeans shop owner, wants him to wear their $300 jeans. They’re made with special bacteria and can’t be washed. The bacteria eats the dirt.
5th Jan: A pretty twentyish blonde girl serving me at the car repair place bent over to write down my details. I saw ‘Joshie’ tattooed in beautiful black copperplate across her left breast.
Fertile Ground: In a long crack in a short concrete wall, a Johnny-jump-up grows, unwatered and ignored until now. Years ago they grew in a pot plant near the little wall, a very poor specimen which I abandoned. Hope reigns.
I love this idea. I see unusual — at least to me — things all the time, but only think of writing them down.
Thanks Anne. I found the idea in a write-your-life-story book, and a couple of years ago I worked on it for a few weeks. That’s when I realised how much happens in life that is not normal according to our experience. I use this ‘unusual’ theme in tutoring English, and it works well.