Actually this has nothing to do with the book or going to jail, but it is about an encounter in a cemetery, that was a little peculiar. OK, I have posted before about how my Fit Bit was creating new and interesting situations for me. I often, now, walk at night for a few blocks to make up my 10,000 steps for the day. Night people are different than day people. I think that there is something about the cloak of darkness that has people doing "things" that day people rarely do, such as sitting on the side walk.
Well, the other day I was doing my usually walk throughout the cemetery, a walk that adds at least 5,500 steps in about 45 minutes to my 10,000 steps a day challenge, that is if all goes well. I never mind the venue. In fact I am quite fascinated by the headstones and I love the peace and the almost forest-like setting of Mt Pleasant cemetery. I know not to make eye contact with passersby, unless they look like congenial sorts. You see, cemetery people are not really like day people or night people, they can be really weird people, present company excepted, of course :)
Anyway, on Friday, I was almost finished my walk and very near the south gate and the very busy main street of Toronto, Yonge St., when I noticed a man in his '60s dressed in a bright orange parka with the hood pulled up around his face and the drawstring tied so tightly that all that was visible was his nose, mouth and maybe an eye or two. He looked to be a strong man, but somewhat agitated. He was walking straight towards me, gulp! Finally he stopped about two feet from me. People who get up close and personal always make me nervous. What next!!
Actually he was asking for directions. If he took a certain path could he get to the visitation centre, which is on the other side of this section of the cemetery. At least I hope he was looking for that visitation centre because the other one was about a mile an half away by the winding cemetery roads, which looped under another main road and surfaced a fair walk away, almost the length of a 200 acre plot of land!! I found his question a little odd, since he had just looked at a map, which was near the gate. I said politely that I wasn't sure, but the path was, at least, heading in the right direction.
He then proceeded to argue with me, because I wasn't sure. Well, it might have been -10ºC, but I was getting a little hot under the collar. Again, I said, that he couldn't go wrong taking any of the paths in that direction, they were going to take him near the centre anyway. More negatives on my uncertainty!! At that point I should have said, "No, take this path." and sent him in almost the opposite direction!! Maybe he sensed my annoyance and soften a little by saying, "Do you walk here often?" Why, I haven't heard that line in 30 years or more!! I wasn't sure, how to answer. If I had said daily, what was I inviting?
Finally, he noticed a sweet young thing taking a smoke break, right beside the map. He shouted, as he left me, and walked towards her, "Do you work here?" My new mantra is "Beware of aging men in orange parkas stalking women of any age, in northern cemeteries." I also wonder if my fit bit has an alarm system :)
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