Roger Moroney: It's when I answer myself I worry

I also talk to cats, but unlike me they never reply.

COMMENT:

It was around about ten to eight...in the morning.

I was entering my work abode and I was talking to myself...again.

For two reasons.

One: There was no one else around.

Two: Who else would wants to listen to my verbal preambles at that time of the day except me.

Because at the best of times I sometimes struggle to make sense, which occasionally leads me to further pursue the act of talking to myself as I ask "what are you talking about?"

To which I take things a step further and answer myself by saying "I'm not a hundred per cent sure actually."

So there I was, at the battle-scarred terrain of the paper-strewn plateau I call my desk, talking to myself.

I had a column to devise and deliver and there is a deadline to such things of course.

"What am I going to write a column about?" I asked myself.

"No idea...you're on your own," I replied huffily.

"Thanks for nothing," I snorted before loitering off to make a cup of tea.

The talking continued, as it does more frequently these days I've started to realise.

Maybe it's an age thing?

I don't recall talking to myself when I was a kid or a young chap.

But as the years edged by and took the colour out of my hair with them I realised I had begun to start talking to myself a lot.

Singing along to a tune on the radio is fine and dandy and that's something even the little kids do...although they get away with talking to themselves by playing with little soft toys they have names for and make talk to each other.

Were I to attempt to have a noisy chat with a toy koala I placed in the trolley whilst stopped in aisle three of the supermarket I suspect the management would call a constable.

However, I do tend to talk to myself a lot whilst at one of the giant grocery shops.

"Now where did I put the shopping list?" is a fairly regular conversation...and I generally reply along the lines that I suspect it's back in the glovebox.

Which has me muttering all the way back to the car, and then back to the giant grocery store's entranceway.

HBT16007220: Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.

This behaviour, I am sure, is a spark for others to slip into the act of talking to themselves as they ask themselves "why's that silly old bloke talking to himself?"

Which is when they realise they are also talking to themselves and likely add "I hope he didn't hear me."

Of course I didn't.

I was too busy talking to myself.

An activity which continues throughout my shopping expeditions.

"Mmmm...shall I go for the lemon pepper flavoured salmon or the smoked job?"

But I'm not alone.

I do hear other people talking themselves whilst on shopping expeditions.

They need an opinion about whether they should pay a little extra for some fancy item and therefore ask the nearest person...themselves.

"Oh it won't hurt...it's only a couple of extra dollars," is a popular reply.

The old work shed out the back is another popular venue for my one-on-one conversations, because I am in possession of fairly basic skills and things do tend to go wrong occasionally and I inevitably ask myself "why the hell did you do that?"

I also have to ask myself where I put the pliers because given I was the last to use them I must surely know where they are.

"I'm sure I left them there," is a common answer as I scour the unruly benchtop for any trace of them.

"Ah now I remember," I will eventually declare with delight.

"I left them on the fridge."

So I'll go and fetch them, wander back to the shed, and then ask myself in frustrated bewilderment "why did I need them in the first place?"

Then I'll often find myself talking to the cat.

"What have you spotted in that tree matey?"

As if they know what I'm on about and will tell me.

So I answer for them and declare that "I see what you've spotted."

That's when I inevitably ask myself why I'm having a conversation with a cat.

Probably because I couldn't get any sense out of myself.

So then...what am I going to write a column about?

Dunno.

But I'll think of something.

* Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.