Linda Hall: If you don't mind me asking

Linda Hall likes to ask lots of questions.

When I meet new people I can't help myself ... I start asking questions.

"Oh so were you born and bred in the Bay? What's your maiden name? [depending on gender of course]. Do you have children, what are their names, how old are they, what do you do for a living?" And I just go on and on.

Sometimes I do it because, believe it or not, I'm a bit shy around new people and I don't like long silences.

Plus, it's part of my job to ask questions and I'm rather nosy.

I've been asked more than once: "Are you a policeman?"

I've also had the "look" from Mr Neat that says "enough now".

And sometimes I can see that people are getting a little bit uncomfortable with my cross examination, so I back off; others don't care and ask me just as many questions back.

I do like asking questions though. And if I'm not asking other people, I ask myself.

For instance: How many people shop at Kmart on a freezing cold winter's night between 10pm-midnight?

In fact, why would anyone want to go shopping at that time of the night?

I understand Kmart are providing a service and they do a great job, but what I don't understand is why anyone would want to go out shopping at that time of the night.

While we are on the subject of shopping, I also ask myself the question, "Why oh why do I always walk flat out into a shop when it's raining, on to a lino floor?"

I should know better. I've skidded a few times and just saved myself from falling over.

I wasn't so lucky yesterday when I went into Pita Pit at a hundred miles an hour and my left leg went straight out from under me, my right knee hit the floor, and there I was ... sprawled on the ground with the staff looking at me with startled looks on their faces. The people who walked in behind me asked if I was okay, while the other people in the shop looked on, I'm sure, while trying not to laugh.

I was so embarrassed. One of the staff, after asking if I was okay, said she thought I was showing her some tricks. I felt like laughing hysterically.

After I got my delicious Pita Pit I walked very carefully to my car asking myself why I am such a dork sometimes?

Wind back the clock a few hours to yesterday morning and anyone visiting our house would have found me rummaging through the wheelie bin. Why? Well, I'd asked myself another question the night before.

Why is it that I have supermarket receipts languishing at the bottom of my handbag for weeks on end before I finally have a clean-out, but the only time I actually need one of them, I've thrown it out the day I went shopping?

I buy different flavoured tea often and a certain brand has a competition going at the moment to win a trip to Hawaii. I don't buy the brand just for that; I've bought it for years and since the competition has been going I've never got a teabag with a "Lucky Tag" in it. But this week I did. I was a little bit excited until I realised this was just my chance to enter the competition, I hadn't actually won anything. Oh well, I thought, that's okay, I'll enter.

But it wasn't that easy; I had to have my till receipt. Why, I asked myself, do I need that? The boxes are sealed, I couldn't get it any other way.

Would a shoplifter target tea bags? I doubt it, even it they saw there was a trip up for grabs they would have to be pretty lucky to get a packet with a Lucky Tag.

I guess the promoters of the competition have their reasons, and, as I found my receipt, if I win I'll ask them. I won't hold my breath though.

-Linda Hall is assistant editor at Hawke's Bay Today.