Just like everybody else

You know, I thought I was normal until last week.

 

Last week I took this photo:

 

It is upside down and I can't seem to fix it. No matter - the photo is the mere McGuffin here. If you want to find out why I took it then follow my Twitter account.

This is about how I took it.

 

I saw this shop and the declaration of war on English grammar it has made the day before I took this photo. The platter of "Baked Potato's", "Salad Bowl's" and "Full breakfast's to sit in or takeaway" on offer was pure Twitter fodder.

 

By the next day I had decided, yes, I am going to record this in a Tweet. It'll be just what my follow-dwellers expect of me.

 

I got up early - I had checked the weather forecast: Rain by 12 noon - and closed the door behind me.

 

8 minutes later I was there, at Fillip's Sandwich Shop. I was surprised at the queue in it. I could hardly simply stand outside, take my photo and walk away. That is not the actions of a normal person if I was witnessed.

 

I can't have people think I am odd.

 

Nope. I needed to be normal. I needed to pretend I had normal, every man reason for being there.

 

Could I stand at the bus stop outside the shop? That is what normal people do if they are waiting for a bus. And even though I wasn't waiting on a bus, no one would know I wasn't. It has to be pretty easy to convince people you are waiting for a bus. You stand a bus stop at 11 in the morning: you're certainly waiting for a bus. It is that simple.

 

But then, what if the bus came? I would need to be normal by boarding it. No one would suspect a thing. But then, how far would I travel? Judging by a normal person of my health and age, a few stops would be suspicious. I would need to get off much further than I would be reasonably expected to walk. Damn, why hadn't I waited until the rain. Getting a bus 2 stops up the road in the rain - I could get away with that.

 

But then, either way, I have had a bus journey to all intents as a normal person. Only I have no reason to even be on the bus.

 

No, that version of normal wouldn't do.

 

So I gave myself another backstory.

 

Having agreed to meet someone, I was now waiting for them. I checked my watch again. THst definitely says: waiting for someone. My character was impatient. I looked up the road in the direction I figured my meeting would be arriving from.

 

Then I had a masterstroke.

 

I pulled out my phone and pretended I had a text. It was asking where I was. There was no text [keep up].

 

I took a photo of the sandwich shop Fillip owns and made out as if I was sending it in a text. Of course I was in fact tweeting it. Clever, Greville, clever.

 

Mission accomplished. Followers now up to speed.

 

Only now, people would be expecting someone to meet me.

 

Play it smooth. We can get out of this.

 

I stood for another 3 minutes gazing up the road. Then my eyes widened. Oh, a text! In inverted commas. I read the blank screen it as if my meeting was now not to be taking place there after all - a change of plans. I shook my head.

 

I actually shook my head at the screen of the phone. There was nothing on it.

 

Then I calmly walked away until out of sight round the corner and I legged it back home. So I wouldn't caught.

 

A man arranges a meeting. Possibly with idea of getting a couple of filled roll's [sic] for brunch. He texts proof where he is to help the other party to know what to look out for. The other party texts back - a change of plan, a new place to meet is agreed.

 

What could be more normal than that?

 

Only of course, none of it was really happening.

 

In a bid to be normal I had, in fact, acted out a one man vignette show of normality with all the subtlety of a play written by Samuel Beckett.

 

That's, well, I don't think that is normal.

 

And not even a single f**king retweet. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother.