Mr What

Outside my house there’s about four or five fields of grass all joined together. We’ve come into the habit of walking the dog across these fields because it’s dead handy.

Yesterday the missus was doing exactly that, when a strange man walked up with a labrador, a nerdy anorak and a suspicious nature.

“Hello, what’s your name?” he asked, creepily.

The dogs were barking at each other, so my missus didn’t reply - she was trying to control the dog, so she said “Quiet Sadie!”

The weird man must have misunderstood this as my wife’s name and ominously replied “Hello Sadie. My name is Mr. What”

At that point, my wife made a hasty exit and took a detour away from the field before waiting for him to leave. It was all a bit creepy and left my wife feeling rather uneasy.

I know he didn’t really do anything wrong - on the face of it he was just trying to say hello to a fellow dog-owner, as dog-owners are wont to do. I’m also aware that his name may well have been spelled ‘Mr Watt’ and that I deliberately spelled it ‘What’ because it seemed to fit his creepiness better, but it hasn’t stopped me feeling nervous about the fact that he was being creepy in a field with my wife where shouts for help would have been hard to hear.

Maybe Mr What is a nice man with an unfortunate way of introducing himself. Maybe he just calls himself Mr What because he’s a Dr Who fan or something. It would certainly explain the anorak.

In any case, that field is beginning to give off unsettling vibes whenever I walk through it alone. A couple of nights ago a young woman walked up to the entrance of the feild (It’s just a road next to it - no other features, no bus stops or anything whatsoever). She didn’t see me. She entered the field, walked over to a grassy mound, stood on top of it at put her backpack onto the ground. She stood waiting for a minute, then picked up her backpack and left.

It was very strange. Maybe she was looking for Mr What.

Oh, and I saw Waiting for Godot last night at the Arches in Glasgow. Very good it was, and rather well acted. Just thought I’d mention that there.

Add comment October 17th, 2003