Question

Speech on if i was a camera

Answer 1

If I were a camera, I’d snap images of the dozens of merrily poetic scenes that run by me each day. They happen so fast, they are so overlapping, that I can’t get them all written down in time to capture the flavor. If I were a camera I’d be snapping all the time. SNAP #1 An energetic, tiny puppy runs past the shop, pulling a woman in her wheelchair as she shops the streets. I rub my eyes and realize this pup could not possibly be pulling such a load—the wheelchair is battery-powered, and he’s just doing what opportunists have done since time began: find out which way the masses are heading and run ahead to make it look like they’re leading the pack. The puppy is leading his source of nurture retroactively and having a merry time of it. The puppy really is pulling the chair! As Charlie Chan once said, “Sometimes the impossible makes itself happen.” SNAP #2 “Will you buy me a candy bar?” It’s the voice of the checkout clerk, and I’m the only customer at the counter. First, I think she’s talking to herself via one of those earpod phones—that is, until she repeats the question, looking straight at me. I realize she’s trying to get me to add a dollar to my purchase so that she can legally pluck said candy from the display and eat it, free of charge. I’m so taken aback—so in a hurry—that I comply. She thanks me. I leave the store knowing that I’ve been smoothly and legally panhandled. For some reason, I don’t mind. Her bosses will never know. SNAP #3 This happened once when I was very young…and I learned a valuable lesson from it: In the throes of a very busy day at the shop, a street person enters, toting a heavy box. He wants to sell me the contents—a bunch of books, the likes of which I normally try to find, familiar titles I can always use. Without taking time to examine them, I hastily offer him a few dollars and proceed to help three customers, field one phone call request, search for a book I just know was here a few minutes ago…you know, the multi-tasking kinds of things you do to run an efficient shop. Later, when things have settled down, I go through the ritual of pulling volumes from the box in order to examine, clean, price and shelve them. It’s right about then that I realize I’ve just purchased my own books. The street guy has gone into my basement storage area, stolen whatever he saw there, then entered the shop to sell them to me. I’m amused at my carelessness, I admire his aggression, I roll my eyes at the silliness of the incident, and I file away yet another anecdote to pass on to you on a day like today.