I am listening to somebody else's conversation.
I like to do this. I like the face I have to pull. Looking away from the speaker, slightly into the distance, eyes soft and focusing on nothing, as if I am empty minded and definitely not listening. A quirk of nature has ensured that this facial expression actually makes your ears more sensitive, and better at picking up a stranger's words. Well done evolution! You knew we might need to snoop!
The conversation I am currently listening to is happening in a queue. It bears some relevance to another conversation I heard last week in a sauna. To look like I am not listening in the queue, I am looking down at some muffins. In the sauna, I looked at the door handle. This queue is less hot than the sauna, but also less relaxing, so I think they are evenly matched at listening places.
This is my table of the best and worst places to 'listen' using my research so far.
BEST PLACEMIDDLE PLACEWORST PLACE
QUEUE
SAUNA
I like to think that I haven't peaked or troughed so far, that my experience in this field has only just begun. (I am not in a field, that would be stupid as I would probably not have wi-fi and then this wouldn't be a blog, but just me typing a diary entry, which is very considerate of me, as I cannot read my own handwriting so will be helpul if I ever want to read my diary entry back, but also, I will never want to read my diary entry back, I will have new things to think by then, this is a blog, for people to read who are not me and so have nothing about me to think, so that they can think about me. I HAVE NEVER WRITTEN A BLOG BEFORE. I WONDER IF THEY ARE ALL AS GOOD AS THIS?)
In the queue, they are talking about something that I know about. And they are talking about it WRONG. As in, they are getting it WRONG. A boy and a girl they are (or man or woman if you prefer people with pubes and jobs to be referred to as such) and they are saying a thing and getting it WRONG. I am tingling with excitement. I don't know if I have ever felt so alive. I am more engaged listening to their conversation while looking at some muffins (chocolate coloured) then I have ever been in any conversation that I have actually been allowed to speak in. Am I allowed to speak in this one? That is the question (you can see this from the question mark at the end of it, unless someone is reading this to you, in which case I hope they added the upward inflection correctly or you will be confused. If you are confused, ask them to desist reading as they are not good at it...UNLESS they are a volunteer reading to you because you are blind in which case just be grateful and shut up they sound like a really good person. If you are blind being read to by a volunteer that last bit will sound like they made it up and added it in about themselves really arrogantly, but they didn't).
So the thing is, AM I ALLOWED TO CORRECT THE PEOPLE WHO ARE WRONG? Their conversation is happening very near me, so I am not being weird by over-hearing it. I don't have super-sonic ears, I haven't moved from Milwaukee in...America? (Sounds like it would be in America. Or Poland.) to correct them on their miss-using of a fact. But I feel like talking to any stranger in a queue makes them look at you as if you have. AS IF YOU HAVE PACKED UP ALL YOUR STUFF, QUIT YOUR JOB, GOT A NEW JOB IN A DIFFERENT CONTINENT AND THEN QUIETY WAITED FOR THEM TO PAUSE IN THEIR INCORRECT SPEAKINGS TO CORRECT THEM. I haven't done that stranger in a queue, so why don't you tell that to your face.
I feel so clever that I know more than these people in the queue. So informed. I am a genius. If there was a Trivial Pursuit game going on right now instead of real life, and the question was about what they are talking about, I would get that question right. And if that question was for a cheese, than so be it. That cheese would be mine. Unless I wasn't playing in the game, but just standing nearby, in which case I would obey social decorum and keep my mouth shut, just like I am doing now. SO YOU WILL NEVER KNOW THAT IT WAS 2006 THAT LEONA LEWIS WON X-FACTOR. NOT 2009. I am leaving the café now in disgust at their ignorance and also because looking softly at those muffins for so long has made me feel full and I don't need a panini anymore. Well done evolution, making me feel full just by looking at food! You knew I might need to save all my money for Jaeger-bombs and not fripper it away on nutrition.
The conversation I heard in the sauna last week went like this. It was a girl and a girl this time (or 'women' if you prefer female people able to go to scary/rude films to be referred to as such). One of them was saying this (imagine it in a drawly south London nasally voice if your in-head voice is good at doing accents and impressions):
"I've seen Mamma Mia"
And the other lady (same voice, slightly lower)
"What was that like?"
(I wish I could do the voices for you, I'm really good at voices) Then the first lady (not Michelle Obama, the first lady to speak in this conversation from earlier, STOP GETTING SO DISTRACTED)
"yeah...it was good."
That lady continued speaking. (I'm not calling her the first lady anymore in case you start imagining me in the sauna with Michelle again).
"I've seen Starlight Express..."
"Oh. Was that good?"
"Yeah. It was good. I saw Blood Brothers last year..."
"What was that like?"
"It was good. I saw Phantom of the Opera"
"Did you like it?"
"I thought it was good. But then I saw the new Phantom of the Opera."
"Did you?"
"That was bad".
And then I stopped listening because I had heard enough. I had realised what the moral of my first blog would be (I am assuming all blogs have a moral)
You see (unless you are blind and being read to, in which case, you understand) some human beings are able to play instruments, and compose music, and write words in sentences and put sentences one after the other so that they form stories and scripts and some people can say the story while jumping about and wiggling and singing from deep in their lungs and other people, other ones, can sit on their bums and judge things as 'good' or 'bad'. Some people know when Leona Lewis won X-factor, some people don't.
We're not all equal. Well done Evolution! You knew that we'd need some kind of pecking order so that some people would end up doing the jobs no one wants to do, while other people would get to dance around in Musicals! This may seem unfair, but it might actually be the most organised way of doing things. But then you try telling that to some one you don't know in a queue.
LOVE FROM SARA XX