MWAA and MWAWAD

Hello

I want to introduce you to MWAA.

MWAA is a phenomenon I've observed during most weekdays around the area I live.

It appears I am both an observer and participant. This came as a bit of a surprise because I thought I was the only one. A bit like Tigger.

It is something that seems unique to my circumstances but there is also MWAWAD which appears to have a number of similarities but with two fundamental differences. About which you will shortly learn.

MWAA is Man Wandering Around Alone.
MWAWAD is Man Wandering Alone With A Dog.

You see, as someone unemployed and whose partner works, I have a fair amount of time on my hands. True I have many interests. My baths and toilets sparkle, the paintwork throughout the house gleams, my podcast uploads are on time, my cooking is not always a disaster zone. Therefore, instead of driving to do stuff, I usually walk. Sometimes with a purpose (food, library, free wine tasting, the bargains reduced in price on the shelves in M&S at 7pm, looking at the Screwfix brochure and wondering what that tool is actually for) and sometimes because the weather is just too nice to stay in, I go out for a walk with no destination in mind. And there they are. Like a Zombie movie wandering around. Other MWAA. Because I am British there is, of course, no way I'm going over to introduce myself and find out why they are MWAA. That would take 25 years of tacitly noticing them and marginally inclining my head in their direction before we could move to a brisk 'Morning.' If I was American we would have formed a club after a few days, meet regularly, wear baseball caps with logos and be having bonding sessions in smoke filled Yurts in the wild woods of Wales by now. I mean, I've been saying hello to Mrs Lodge who walks down our road for 27 years now and only plucked up the courage to formally introduce myself and find out her name a few weeks ago. We do not want to rush these things. 

In the absence of evidence therefore, I conclude that these MWAA are like me - unemployed and wandering around for much the same reasons. We'll never know because we will never ask each other of course.

And then there's MWAWAD. These men have dogs. All sorts of dogs. Macho alsatians to those horrid things you feel you could put in your pocket. They all look a little sheepish to me. The men I mean, not the dogs, because if they were taking sheep for a walk I'd suspect rustling was going on. It's as if there has been a conversation at home along the lines of 'You COULD go out and take the DOG for a walk for THREE hours because my friends are coming over and we want to talk about our lives and womanly things without MEN being around and messing up the place and offering opinions or trying to mansplain things.' Or something like that.

So these men and their dogs wander around, the dogs doing their doggy things and then men carrying the little blue bags of doggy pooh and trying not to look slightly foolish - although they all do. 

I thought I'd point it out in case you saw me. But don't try and talk to me unless you've been passing me for at least 25 years. And then I can't guarantee anything more conversational than a comment about the weather. At least not for another 5 years. Then we will see.