I popped out the the chemist today- with 6 children at home for the holidays I strangely needed to buy in more headache tablets.....
So I wandered in to the chemist, got distracted immediately by a display of hand creams ( a girl can never have too much hand cream. Well, this girl can't anyway) so veered right, into the depths of the shops, away from the chatting assistants.
They obviously didn't even notice I had come in and carried on chatting amongst themselves. I wasn't deliberately eavesdropping but overheard them gossipping about house prices and wondering out loud who would pay such-and-such for a particular house.
I carried on browsing and their conversation turned to the weather, which has been veering in my neck of the woods between gorgeous warmish spring sunshine, then below zero temperatures and sleet and snow then howling gales with torrential rain.
One assistant put forward the odd weather as evidence towards her end of the world theory. She was also a bit worried about the meteor which recently crashed in Russia and commented that she had heard the Pope had resigned because he knew the end of the world was coming and couldn't cope with it.
I had reached the till by then with enough pain killers to tranquillise any horses that hadn't already been turned into lasagne and joined in the conversation, pointing out the more popular view was that His Holiness was just old and not very well.
Another assistant added that she had heard the Pope was planning to convert and become Muslim! The other assistants and myself expressed some shock at this - and at this point a young Asian man popped up from behind the pharmacy counter and asked what was wrong with that!
Treading carefully I tried to explain that the Pope converting to anything other than Catholicism would be quite shocking and it wasn't the Muslim aspect that was the issue! He mused that he quite fancied being a Buddhist - we tried to explain that "normal" people converting was less shocking than the head of a huge and ancient international church doing so. He didn't seem convinced so, leaving the assistants to a lively discussion, I made my excuses and left.
The whole experience was quite surreal and as I made my way back to the car it reminded me of so many overheard conversations we tune into every day on the bus or train, in the supermarket queue... I am an avid people watcher and often keep DH regaled with snippets of conversation overheard at the next table in whichever restaurant or cafe we might be in.
I have heard some fantastic conversations out shopping with my friend Tracy - once we had our groceries scanned by a checkout assistant outlining the details of the recent sudden and colourful death of a colleague loudly to the assistant on the next checkout, oblivious to our wide eyes and exchanged looks of disbelief. We took longer than usual to pack and pay as we wanted to hear the end of the story, told with full dramatic effect with conspiracy theories thrown in for good measure!
One of the best conversations I heard recently was between two Asian teenagers. One speaking English, the other answering in their native tongue. I couldn't really hear what either of them were saying but it struck me that their body language, tone and rhythm was the same in both languages. It looked like it was some good, juicy gossip they were sharing!
I read in a biography years ago about a film director who had lunch in a cafe. Two waitresses in the cafe were staring intently at a customer and after a sharp intake of breath one said to the other; "He's only gone and eaten it!" The line was considered so funny it was added into a film.
The moral of this tale of course is to either check who might be listening before having a conversation which might be incriminating, illegal, or embarrassing. Because if you see a dumpy blonde eavesdropping you might end up in this blog!
NB; This is a post I wrote some time ago which I have revisited for the #MagicMoments linky.
So I wandered in to the chemist, got distracted immediately by a display of hand creams ( a girl can never have too much hand cream. Well, this girl can't anyway) so veered right, into the depths of the shops, away from the chatting assistants.
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| Pope Benedict XVI (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I carried on browsing and their conversation turned to the weather, which has been veering in my neck of the woods between gorgeous warmish spring sunshine, then below zero temperatures and sleet and snow then howling gales with torrential rain.
One assistant put forward the odd weather as evidence towards her end of the world theory. She was also a bit worried about the meteor which recently crashed in Russia and commented that she had heard the Pope had resigned because he knew the end of the world was coming and couldn't cope with it.
I had reached the till by then with enough pain killers to tranquillise any horses that hadn't already been turned into lasagne and joined in the conversation, pointing out the more popular view was that His Holiness was just old and not very well.
Another assistant added that she had heard the Pope was planning to convert and become Muslim! The other assistants and myself expressed some shock at this - and at this point a young Asian man popped up from behind the pharmacy counter and asked what was wrong with that!
Treading carefully I tried to explain that the Pope converting to anything other than Catholicism would be quite shocking and it wasn't the Muslim aspect that was the issue! He mused that he quite fancied being a Buddhist - we tried to explain that "normal" people converting was less shocking than the head of a huge and ancient international church doing so. He didn't seem convinced so, leaving the assistants to a lively discussion, I made my excuses and left.
The whole experience was quite surreal and as I made my way back to the car it reminded me of so many overheard conversations we tune into every day on the bus or train, in the supermarket queue... I am an avid people watcher and often keep DH regaled with snippets of conversation overheard at the next table in whichever restaurant or cafe we might be in.
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| Tracy(on the right) and madmumof7 |
One of the best conversations I heard recently was between two Asian teenagers. One speaking English, the other answering in their native tongue. I couldn't really hear what either of them were saying but it struck me that their body language, tone and rhythm was the same in both languages. It looked like it was some good, juicy gossip they were sharing!
 |
| Chaplin-A Conversation Overheard (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The moral of this tale of course is to either check who might be listening before having a conversation which might be incriminating, illegal, or embarrassing. Because if you see a dumpy blonde eavesdropping you might end up in this blog!
NB; This is a post I wrote some time ago which I have revisited for the #MagicMoments linky.
