Tales of Youth: Episode 2: Hello!

When I was three or four, hell maybe even two, I dunno toddler age would be best to put it.


I was taught the importance of manners, a lesson that to this day is of course a very dear subject to me, as should it for many people.
I was told if someone said Hello to me, the courteous thing to do would be to respond, if the classic "don't talk to strangers" lesson was learnt I really don't know.

One day, my dad decided to go off for a shop in town, and decided to bring me along, the bus driver said hello to me,this was my chance, my moment to start my world of manners.

"Hello!".

I just had a conversation with a working man! What an accomplishment. I was amazed at how quick and easy the art of a greeting was, for my entire bus journey this plagued my mind.

"If people say hello to me, I say hello back........ Which means, if I say hello to people.......... They'll say hello back!".
Would such a newly created philosophy suffice?

Off the bus, and walking in town with my dad now, we walk past an old man.




Holy shit!
Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.

I said hello to somebody, and they responded. I had just initiated what I believed was a fully functioning conversation.

This had created somewhat of a Pandora's box effect, causing me to explode with casual, optimistic greetings to everybody and anybody I saw. Being in town, this was a lot of people, and the more replies I got the more excited I got.


Whatever my dad was thinking in taking a hyper, energetic and newly discovered social butterfly me to town with him, I'm sure at this point he was regretting it greatly.
What to me is now a five minute walk to a clothes shop (memory fails me on which one), was most likely a thirty minute, yet very social walk.
Eventually, he made it to his desired shop.


Inside, my dad shopped around, I followed him, once more greeting everybody in my line of fire, I was like a machine. A polite greeting machine, but a machine nonetheless.
Eventually my dad got into a conversation with the cashier. This cashier I had already exchanged pleasantries with, so I moved on...


However, I had already met everybody in the store. It seemed everybody was out of greetings, all I could do was patiently wait for my dad to finish his conversation and hope to meet more folk soon.
This was until I almost walk into somebody else to say hello to.

Little did little me know, this 'person' in question was not a person. It was in fact, a tailors mannequin, snazzily dressed up, posing for potential buyers of the clothes it was wearing so proudly.
I walk up to the mannequin.
"Hello!"

Nothing.
That's okay, I suppose. Maybe he didn't hear me. I'll try again.





There's probably a sort of sixth sense you develop as a parent. When you hear a crash, bang or wallop instead of thinking "Oh what could that be?" you probably instantly think "Well fuck, that's no doubt my child".
This is probably what my dad thought when a thunderous crash bellowed around the shop, what the hell must have happened?

In my anger, confusion and loss of innocence all mixed up in an emotional cocktail. I had tackled the mannequin, and started mercilessly, yet slowly hitting it on the head.
Each unforgiving slap, was met with my screams of "Hello!" almost syncing with the hits, people were watching the carnage of a young boy throwing his arms in the air, and violently down towards an already half destroyed mannequin.