(many points of non-interest..to either myself or yourself precede)
Then BAMM, TWHACK a great big wet fish in the face moment of transcendent attempted empathy. I was walking from my place of slavery, to another place that sells objects optimistically promoted as 'food'. At one point, I found myself following a matron and her quite small hand holding human friend, which I presume was her child. Children walk without any great haste, and very small legs. The path was quite narrow, with overhanging tree branches, and similar encroaching junglery. I prefer to walk at a decent pace, but had no chance of performing an overtaking manoeuvre. You can see where I am going here.
I realised (remembered might be a better term) that I am at least petty enough to become annoyed about any delay of over approximately 10 seconds duration. I absorbed that morsel quickly, and began to think about why the person ahead of me didn't think to position the child in front of her, so that the rapidly building queue of people behind the pair could get past. Was this an important developmental moment for her child, to walk beside mum in the face of building resentment and hostility?
I thought of things I might say, ranging from "excuse me...", "excuse me, your touching family dyad is blocking the way of my individual impatience", "can't you pick that thing up?" all the way to "I think I can jump over it...watch!". I tried to concentrate on humourous, witty, or just strange things that I could say.
Then it occurred to me, that she would probably in turn have some reaction to whatever statement I chose to make. A turn of the head, accompanied by a raised eyebrow or scowl? No acknowledgement but a tensing of the shoulders? Some strange statement of her own involving my head, and a stick? I chose the scowl, and went from there.
To placate the slightly irritated mother figure, I would need to make some further statement, to break the now thickening meniscus of tension which hypothetically held us fast:
"I'm sorry, I do actually like children"; I thought would be a good way to begin.
Then I just couldn't help myself:
"But you really need to use the right sauce"; I found myself thinking.
Well, the hypothetical drama was all over bar the screaming for assistance by that stage. We came to the end of the path. The gene sharers were rapidly overtaken by the once queued mob, channeling their pent rage in a dazzling display of fast walking. I was left wondering if life would have been more interesting if I'd actually said something. At least the hi-jinks of hypothetical me were quite fun.
(many points of non-interest..to either myself or yourself follow)