kidattypewriter

Friday, November 28, 2008

What you don't see, you can't see hurt you

Now, I'm not always the sort of person to do several things at once - I'd usually much rather not do several things at once, and continue not doing them all for some time. But as you probably know, I'm in the habit of reading while walking. I have been ever since I went to school as a kid, walking there from our house several blocks away.

In fact, I've been reading while walking for so long now, that I start getting dizzy and dislocated whenever I walk and don't read. Here's how it happens: I'm walking along to the kitchen at work, and suddenly get confused by the fact that the cord before my feet is actually a cord before my feet, and trip over it. Or I'll be going down to the shops, and I'll start thinking that the post in front of my face is blocking my vision so I can't see the post in front of my face (behind the post in front of my face), with the result that I run into the post in front of my face before I can move out of its way. If I had been reading a book, you see, I would be able to move the book out of the way just before I saw the post in front of my face or the cord before my feet, and step out of their way.

As I've mentioned before, reading while walking over the road is especially fun, or at least it is when the cars stop for you. Which in my case happens quite frequently. Conversely, when you don't have a book and cross the road, it's freaking terrifying! All those huge scary metal beasts, rushing along the road! Who'd want to watch an unfolding horror film like that? Much better to be reading a pleasant poem or a whimsical essay while that terrifying drama unfolds on the roads before you, I find.

What you don't see, you can't see hurt you - that's my motto.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

What about those of us who don't read whilst walking but who walk into things anyway on account of garden-variety, head-in-the-clouds clumsiness? Would taking up walk-reading make us more respectable?

TimT said...

Not necessarily, but it would give you something to entertain yourself with while bumping into objects. Other than the said bumping into of said objects, of course.

Steve said...

Presumably, Tim, your mother didn't warn you about putting on clean underwear when you went out. Instead, it was "make sure you pick a quality book, dear. You don't want the medics laughing about what you were reading as that car mowed you down."

TimT said...

Mowing somebody down with a car because they displayed appalling literary taste sounds like a perfectly valid form of literary criticism to me.

"Another car death. What happened, detective?"
"Looks another LIT AND RUN incident, sergeant."
"When will people learn?"

Steve said...

Boom boom :)

Email: timhtrain - at - yahoo.com.au

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