{"id":6261,"date":"2015-05-27T19:38:09","date_gmt":"2015-05-28T00:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/?p=6261"},"modified":"2025-09-13T14:19:03","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T19:19:03","slug":"stranger-danger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/stranger-danger\/","title":{"rendered":"Stranger danger"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_16138\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16138\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-16138\" src=\"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/20150527_foghorn.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"292\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16138\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Go away, boy. Ya bother me.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I am sitting at a table in my local public library, my laptop, a bottle of water, and my Galaxy Note in front of me. I have headphones on and I am listening to nature sounds because the not-very-socially-graced woman behind me (she and I have a history) is muttering to herself loudly enough that it&#8217;s clear she wants someone to ask her what she&#8217;s working on and her laptop is making funky bubble-popping sounds loudly.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I am at the library to escape loud mutterings, machine-made noises, and children who don&#8217;t care if they&#8217;re worming into my brain space.<\/p>\n<p>A child, boy, ~9ish, whom I have never before seen in my life, comes up to my table as if I had birthed him and almost leans on me.<\/p>\n<div class=\"indentplain\">\n<p><strong>ME:<\/strong> [taking off headphones, trying not to look as annoyed as I am] What can I do for you, sweetie?<strong>HIM:<\/strong> [looking at laptop] Can I play on that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>ME:<\/strong> [?] Play on what?<\/p>\n<p><strong>HIM:<\/strong> [pointing to the Galaxy Note without bothering to open his mouth when he actually needs to answer a question] [the exact same way XY TD does]<\/p>\n<p><strong>ME:<\/strong> [dumbfounded] Um \u2026 <em>NO<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HIM:<\/strong> Never mind.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ME:<\/strong> [waiting for him to leave] [which he is not doing] I have a question.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HIM:<\/strong> Never mind!<\/p>\n<p><strong>ME:<\/strong> No, wait. I&#8217;m just curious. Why do you think it&#8217;s okay\u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>HIM:<\/strong> Never mind! [scurries off]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>A child is perfectly comfortable with almost-snuggling up to a strange woman who&#8217;s obviously trying to block out the world, asking if he can play on an expensive device.<\/p>\n<p>It never occurred to him I&#8217;d say no.<\/p>\n<div class=\"p6261\"><div class=\"sc_fancy_player_container\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-6261-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/music\/foghornleghorn.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/music\/foghornleghorn.mp3\">https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/music\/foghornleghorn.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><span class=\"cat\">Go away, boy. Ya bother me.<\/span><\/div>\n<p>If the strangers won&#8217;t go to them, they will go to the strangers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am sitting at a table in my local public library, my laptop, a bottle of water, and my Galaxy Note in front of me. I have headphones on and I am listening to nature sounds because the not-very-socially-graced woman behind me (she and I have a history) is muttering to herself loudly enough that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6261"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6261"}],"version-history":[{"count":47,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18908,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6261\/revisions\/18908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}