Oracle House

Today on my lunch break, right after I shot this photo of Oracle House on the corner of Court and Marcy Streets, I decided to go scouting for other shots nearby.  I walked away and took a couple of the brick house across and down the street by a lot or two.   Then I decided to return to my car parked on Marcy Street and turned around to face Court Street again.  My car was on the other side of that.

As I began walking to approach the corner, I noticed a young man with a leashed dog there.  It was a pit bull.  The kid (he looked about 20) was smiling broadly and talking to his dog in an excited talking-to-the-doggy voice: "Look at that!  He's got a camera!  He's going to take your picture!  You'd like that, wouldn't you?  Want him to take your picture?"  I was like, "What's he thinking?"  I was in no mood to waste my lunch break taking photos I didn't want to.  I had other things that interested me more, plus the way my camera was set up was not appropriate for portraits.

As I drew close to them, the young man said, "Would you like to take a picture of my dog?"  He was still grinning.

With a flick of my gaze, I briefly met his eyes and said, "No thanks; I'm not interested."  Then I passed by, looking away because I was done with him.

Well, he said something.  At first I wasn't sure what it was because I passed him by keeping to the right, which put him on my deaf side.  I have 100% hearing loss in my left ear.  My right ear hears well, but the deafness makes it hard for me to hear things on my left side, plus competing noises from things like cars make it hard for me to distinguish sounds.

When he spoke, I heard his voice without understanding his words, so I looked at him again out of the corner of my eye.  I was almost directly beside him but a little bit ahead now.  He was scowling.  He looked angry.  I figured out what he said a second too late, and the expression on his face was a big clue.  He had said, "What a dick!"

Hey, it was my lunch break.  I had better things to do, and the kid's reaction proved it.