Saturday, April 10, 2010

Where's the Michelin Man?


Tracked changes
London, ON, February 2010
About this photo: It's a winter-themed Thematic Photographic week, so if you've got something white - or even something that in an abstract sense makes you think of winter - click here to participate.
I don't even want to think about what was going through the stranger's head as he watched me grab this quick moment in the shopping mall parking lot. In our paranoia-infused post-9/11 world, any behaviors that deviate even slightly from the so-called norm are increasingly likely to result in someone surreptitiously calling the police on you. To wit, my not-quite-a-body-in-a-garbage-bag experience earlier this week*.)

But I figured I had about 15 seconds to record this stark moment for posterity before either falling snow or, more likely, a parade of motorists rushing to the pharmacy for on-sale baby powder, turned this ephemeral scene into just a memory.

Something tells me my skeptical witness didn't much care about the big picture here, as I believe I was crouched between him and his baby powder. So as soon as I was done, I slung the camera back over my shoulder and disappeared into the dimming grey late afternoon.

Your turn: Ever behave oddly in public? How? Why?

* I've been watching the headlines since then. No reports of missing folks or recently-uncovered murders. So my conclusion is this guy was dumping garbage. Either way, a doofus extraordinaire. And next time, I'm calling it in.

2 comments:

rashbre said...

I'm sure your tyres are a bit better geared up for snow than ours in the other London. Its all gone now, although I've been in Norway this week, where there's still snow and frozen rivers and lakes.

Jill Ellis-Worthington said...

Approached a mom in a discount shoe store who was young looking and hip enough to let her teen daughters toss shoes to each other across the aisle as they made their selections because she mentioned having nine children all together and it was coming on to Christmas and all interesting facts are stored in a scribe's mind for later use. "Hi, I know this is weird but here's my card and if you're not freaked out could you email me your contact info? I may contact you for an interview because large families are sort of rare these days and I always need sources." She smiled, took the card, said she wasn't freaked out. And . . . actually emailed me a couple of days later - true story. Writer's (and photogs) just take the world in differently. Yes?