Banh-mi

I'm walking to Banh-mi Rico to get a sandwich. A guy coming the other way squints his eyes at me then turns around and starts walking away from me.

I give chase.

Quickly catching up, I grab his shoulder and turn him around. "Give it back!" I say angrily.

"Give what back?"

"Whatever you took, smart-ass!"

"I didn't take anything," he lies.

"Then why did you run from me?"

"I didn't run. "

"Figuratively! Why did you turn and walk away?"

"Away from what?"

"From me!" I say, getting frustrated. "Jesus! Quit being so pedantic!"

"Oh. I'm not Jesus." he says.

"What?!? I wasn't calling you..."

I take a breath. I think maybe that the man is amused. Playing with me. But he isn't the main character in this blog post, I am. And I can't have him playing with me.

"Look." I say. "You did a squint-turn-walk. That isn't the behaviour of a innocent man. Very clearly you've taken something, and I intend to find out what it is."

"Oh. The squint-turn-walk!" he laughs like it is nothing. "I was going to the pie place. But I saw it was closed, so turned around."

"What, and you didn't see me in you eye-line?"

"I probably did." he says, "but I wasn't really paying attention to that. The pie place was closed; why would I not turn around. "

"What are you?" I ask, "A miscreant? What kind of person just does a squint-turn-walk with someone in their eye-line. A normal person notices that and keeps walking until their eye-line is clear to turn around. Or they look down at their watch like they've just realised something before turning around."

"I don't wear a watch."

"That isn't the point." I explain. "If you squint-turn-walk, someone is going to think you some something– "

"I saw that the pie shop was closed.

'-and they are going to think you are trying to get away from something. People don't squint-turn-walk like that."

"Oh yeah?" he asks.

"Yeah. Just give it back."

He unzips his jacket and shows me his shirt. In bold letters is written "Unabashed squint-turn-walker".

"Cut!" I yell.

The director runs in, "What is it? That was great, what's going on?"

"This shirt." I say pointing at it. "Nobody is going to believe he has a shirt that says `squint-turn-walk' on it."

"Look, Mark" says the director. "This isn't a movie. Its a blog, all sorts of shit can happen."

"But this is absurd." I continue, "It's embarrassing. What it my children read this some day."

"Don't worry," says the man in the shirt, "nobody is going to read it."

"Screw this, then" I say, "I'm going for a Banh-mi."