monkey business

the world is very vocal towards me these past few days: I sneezed on the bus and a woman blessed me, I was crossing the road the next day and someone I didn't recognise said "hello, Christopher" (which was weird), then today I was spoken to by strangers on two separate bus rides. The first encounter consisted of a compliment about my hair, while the second was a full blown conversation with a 9 year old about life, money, phone contracts, work, and much else. The latter was prompted by the monkey teddy I have sticking out of my bag pocket, about which aforementioned 9 year old remarked "I like the monkey!"

all this spontaneous conversation made me feel uneasy, which subsequently made me think about how stupid that reaction was. We're taught not to talk to strangers from a young age, and while the reasoning for this is largely good, it could be argued that it turns people into paranoid sociophobes.

then I thought about how awesome it is to have a monkey teddy sticking out of my bag pocket. I recall three conversations initiated by Esteban (the monkey) since I put him in my bag. The first was in Osaka in December, when two Japanese girls said "kawaii saru!" which translates as "cute monkey!" I found this awesome, although I was unable to converse with them due to my low level of Japanese. The second was the conversation I mentioned taking place today, and the third was also today, when a chav observed "'ere, 'e's got a munky in 'is bag!", and deduced (incorrectly) that this made me a "loser".