I’m pretty sure we’ve all met someone like him. He’s the guy who approaches you with what, at first, appears to be a simple, friendly greeting. You respond with an equally friendly greeting because, well, it’s polite (and you’re not a total bastard). However, after about four minutes of mind-numbing small talk, interspersed with disturbing, uninvited insights into his personal life, you realise you’ve been tricked. But by then it’s too late – you’re in a one-sided conversation with socially-inappropriate security guard guy.

I recently visited country Victoria to spend Christmas with my parents and my sister and her family. I was warned by my sister that a large number of inhabitants of a nearby town (which shall remain nameless) seemed to be “not quite right”. Intrigued by this information, my husband and I jumped in the car, and took our son and nephew along for the drive.

When we arrived we bought the kids some bakery delights and sat at a table on the sidewalk of the main street.

This also happened to be the exact moment that socially-inappropriate security guard guy went on his smoke break. (I know back when I was a smoker and went outside for a cigarette, the first thing I always did was find some young children and light up right next to them.)

Now, I tell you with no exaggeration that this man proceeded to talk non-stop for fifteen minutes. After what we thought was just going to be a pleasant (and brief) greeting we suddenly found ourselves held captive by a man who apparently had millions of things to say and not enough people to say them to.

He didn’t care that we had stopped listening. He didn’t notice our uncomfortable body language. He didn’t see my husband and I exchange glances of disbelief. He was even oblivious to the fact that my son had somehow managed to swallow his loose tooth.

Socially-inappropriate security guard guy just kept on yammering while my husband and I attended to my son’s emotional distress. I eventually had to interrupt him, “Excuse me, my son just swallowed his tooth”. He barely even skipped a beat. That’s right, he just kept on telling us things while I tried not to vomit at the thought of swallowing a mouthful of chocolate eclair mixed with blood and tooth.

Eventually we said goodbye to the insane, annoying security guard and drove back to my sister’s house to relay our adventures of the town nearby. The moral of this story? Don’t drive to the next town over in the hopes of finding people who seem “not quite right”, because you might actually find them.

Oh, and it is my firm belief that this is what happened after we left.