I swear I must look like a ghost or something – people seem to think they can walk right through me! This one time, I was walking up the Sussex St ramp to the bridge from the city to Pyrmont, carrying a big bag of shopping, keeping to the left, and this guy was running down the ramp. He slammed into my shoulder and bounced off, across into the opposite railing. Then he turns around like he’s surprised and says sorry. Excuse me, but what do you expect to happen? Did you think you’d go straight through? Or were you expecting to knock me down and keep running?
Then another time, I’m at Central Station looking for the rail replacement bus on the Eastern Suburbs line, carrying a box containing a microwave oven, and once again keeping as far to the side as possible. These girls are walking four abreast in the opposite direction, and the one on the end walks into my box. At this point, she stops moving, because the box and I act as a barrier, but she keeps trying to walk for several seconds before she decides it’s a good idea to go around me. Speaking of people who keep trying when they’re going nowhere, an obese idiot in Woolworths at Town Hall tried walking through my shopping basket. The way it pushed into his flab was morbidly fascinating. When he realised I have corporeal presence, he got all offended.
Aa couple of days ago I was on my way home from work, crossing the south bridge in Rushcutters Bay Park, keeping as far to the left as I can, and a soccer player going the other way kind of half tries to avoid me. Well there’s a wall on the side of the bridge to stop you falling off. It’s not like I can walk through it, doofus. Would it really be that hard to walk behind your bum chum while you pass me? He definitely came off worse from the collision.
And just last night, I was getting off a train at Kings Cross (yeah, my local station is in a red light district), and the people waiting to board were standing in a shoulder-to-shoulder wall. Don’t you realise you’re going to have to board the train in file, anyway? It’s not like a Tautliner – you have to go through the doors. So I knocked my way through them.
These are just the more memorable collisions from the last few months. There have been plenty more in the Bondi Junction bus terminal and Westfield that I’m not going to relate. I’m really getting sick of it. So what should I do? Should I wear really tacky brightly coloured clothing? Do I need a shirt that says, “Do I look like a ghost, doofus?” I’m honestly at a loss at this point.
(This one time, though, I was at work late, and a bit stressed, and one of my colleagues said I was pale and sweating, and I looked like ghost – not the Casper kind of ghost, but more like a Japanese horror movie ghost that had just stepped out of the screen. But I don’t think that’s the kind of ghost people would try walking through.)
