Hot Ear.

 Went out for my daily walk. It ended up being over six miles today, and my legs are feeling okay, which is good news for me. I've been what posh girls in Agatha Christie novels call a "croc" for twenty plus years. I broke my knee, the hospital infected it with MRSA, and it never healed properly. The leg is shorter than it was, and a very different shape. I walk like Havoc from Mobb Deep now. But I can still walk - I'm not sure there's significant arthritis in the break yet, and as long as I keep it moving it doesn't stiffen up. I have trouble with the tight and twangy sinew behind the knee, but daily exercise keeps it in reasonable shape. Walking sticks will probably feature in my future, but for the time being I'm doing okay. And anyway, I'd look good with a cane. 

So my leg's fine. My ear's a different story...

As I was bowling along the Newtownards Road, I came to a bus stop. In front of that bus stop was a tall man, standing in the middle of the street with his back to me. He was wearing headphones. As I approached, over a distance of twenty plus feet, he didn't move - he just stood there, in a power stance. 

"Excuse me." I said. But he couldn't hear cause he had headphones on. I was going to have to tap him on the shoulder or go round him. I went round him. 

This was a mistake. I stepped off the pavement - already pissed off to have to step into oncoming traffic because this prick had rendered himself oblivious - and at the same time he saw the bus arriving, which he hailed with a powerful flexing of his left arm, bang into the right side of my head.    

"You fucking idiot!" I said. 

"Sorry mate." he shouted, as he still had his headphones on. He looked mortified, but that didn't stop him immediately getting on the bus, which swept up to the bus stop at that moment, exactly as it would have done without him waving it down. I could hear laughter from the bus. Not his. The laughter of children, overjoyed because they'd seen a man punched in the head by accident. 

"Dick!" I shouted at the closing doors, though there was no real harm done - my glasses didn't fly off and smash, I didn't fall into the path of an oncoming car. I just had a hot ear. By the time I'd walked six miles, I'd exorcised my rage, and the rest of me was as hot as the ear. It's an old wives tale that a hot ear means someone is talking about you. And I imagine that, yes, I was probably a hot topic of conversation on that bus for a while. Oscar Wilde said the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. But not if they're talking about your sore ear, Oscar. C'mon.