Overheard and Overlapping Conversations

Overheard and Overlapping Conversations ©

By Michael Casey

I was in Aldi with my small daughter buying ingredients for her last cookery lesson of the year, when at the checkout she started to smile, she was overhearing a conversation between a mother and her 10 year old son. Mum can I have some magnum choc-ice, the boy asked, no you are too fat already was the mum’s honest reply. The child was a bit annoyed, what he and his mother didn’t know was that my small daughter could understand each word in Mandarin.  The child was a little emperor and mum a stereotypical Chinese mum.

That is the bonus if you can speak another language, and when you have such a Western face too, the Chinese didn’t have a clue. You’ll have to forgive us for our little bit of eves-dropping. Though my own Chinese nickname is Panzi, which means PIG, I found this out only when my daughters grew big enough to tell me.

So Languages give you plenty of amusement as you overhear things on the bus or in the street. I do need to learn a few words of Polish, I think Taq means Thank You, I hear it most days when I pop into the Polish shop for eggs, I’m sure my Polish readers will laugh at my stupidity when they read this.

You overhear things as you are wandering around Aldi or in the street, people forget that they are on a mobile and not in a red phone box, you don’t have a heavy door blocking out the world and its noise, and most importantly its EARS.

Look I had a good time and so did you, but being sick all over my carpet was a bit too much, my dad will kill me when he gets home from the Green. I thought you said he was in jail for 6 years. Yes, he has been in jail for 6 years. So we are safe then, besides I can have the rug cleaned before he gets out of jail. Look the Green is slang for Winson Green Jail, its only down the road. But he’s in there for 6 years, how many more years is he in jail for? About 2 hours, he’s Prison Officer, he works there, these past 6 years.

Somebody drops their basket of shopping and runs out of Aldi heading for the carpet shop, a flying carpet is needed before her 21stone flower arranging prison officer gets home. Luckily the carpet shop has a sale and a flower themed carpet to go.

I did once actually hear a boy and a girl having a conversation while the boy leant against a wall, it may have been the wall of the Town Hall. His girl was trapped in front of him. They were not being intimate, that had happened already. The boy was practically shouting, YOU HAVE TO TELL YOUR DAD YOU ARE PREGNANT, BECAUSE I   PARTICULARLY DON’T WANT TO. This must have happened maybe 30 or 35 years ago. Was he wearing white flared trousers, I cannot remember any more. I think when I was in Shanghai for the 1^st time I overheard the same conversation, my wife translated it for me.

So you get Drama in the street, people may not want to go to the theatre but if you have eyes and ears Theatre is all around you. Or Love that kills can be seen. As we walked home from Aldi my small daughter spotted an old lady who I  see quite often. The old lady had a small dog who at first seemed to have a leg problem, it was not a leg problem. The dog was just too fat because the old lady loved the dog so much she over fed it.

I think really we should introduce the old lady and her dog to the Little Emperor fat Chinese boy. Then the boy could walk the dog and both would lose weight and the dog might not die before the old lady as this would break her heart and could even kill her.

Now stories are traditionally a circle, and so I could finish here, but instead I need to have a proper circle. Cookies are circular after all, so when we got home my daughter test baked her cookie recipe, and her big sister licked the spoon just as I used to do 50 years ago. What did you think the cookies tasted like? Well they were wonderful, my small daughter is quite a cook, as is my wife and as was my big aunty Delia from Killarney.

 So as cookies are round and aunty Delia was very round and funny, 110 kilos of fun and laughter even though she was only 5feet tall, I think I shall finish here. Sharing round cookies to my readers all around the world, and the world is a circle too.  

p.s.I did plan to add a photo but we ate all the cookies,

       just like the Bear in Andy Williams