Being a friendly neighbour

There wasn’t much light, OK? That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

It was early evening. Pretty dim outside. I went out the front to get the mail and saw a shape across the road. My neighbour walking his dog.

I smiled nervously.

I used to dread leaving the house for fear of having to chat to my neighbours who (unless they've made some educated guesses based on some appalling piano-playing last year) are oblivious to the fact that I've been deaf almost the entire time I've lived there.

And then there is the memory of the time I was hurriedly unloading the shopping from the car under the fear of being accosted by some drunk and disorderly person shouting his way up the street … only to discover that the shouting was, in fact, my next-door-neighbour just trying to get my attention from over the fence. Oops.

So back to my evening trek to the letter box.

I heard my neighbour shout out, 'hi, how are you going' from across the street and instantly relaxed. OK. This was probably going to be manageable.

So I shouted back: 'good thanks, how are you?'

He then proceeded to give me a rundown of his troubles at work, naming people I'd never heard of before. This was odd. Up until this point, we had not gone beyond a casual smile and a wave. A comment about the weather maybe. We'd certainly never covered the trials and tribulations of forklifting. While I stood there trying to work out why he was giving me so much detail, I realised he'd stopped talking.

Oh no! Um, better think of something to say! Quickly now!

Then he said something like: 'Yeah, I know but …' and kept on talking. What?

A pause. Then some more talking. Another pause. More talking. And all the while, he hadn't stopped walking his dog, so he was a few houses down now.

Oh. My. Goodness. He was on his mobile phone. He had not been talking to me at all!

I can only be grateful that the dim evening light masked my red face as I quickly shuffled back to the safety of the house, holding my mail. :-)