Person or Potted Plant?

This morning while taking my dog on our 5:00am fitness walk, I may have said hello to a potted plant. I walk the same route everyday (though sometimes I walk it in reverse, like the really really hard levels of Mario Kart) and only see one other person whom I give a "Hey we're both walking dogs" wave and move on without issue.

I walked down a hill today when suddenly, without warning (except for the low battery sign) my iPod died (forever I'm afraid). This distracted me a great deal, insomuch that I did not notice the person sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of the house across the street. I soon crossed the street, still tinkering with my stupid dead iPod, and looked up at the house.

It freaked me out at first, seeing a round head above the railing of the porch. I'm a friendly walker, so I nodded and said, "Good morning!" with the same faux cheer people who say, "Oh yeah, we're visiting Wisconsin!" use.

As an unspoken life rule, when someone greets you with cheer, faux or no, you should respond in kind. Example:

"Howdy!" said person a.
"Die you peppy bastard!!!" said person b.

You see, person b used three exclamation points when speaking. He did a great job. What did this mysterious person do this morning? I'll play it out for you:

"Good morning!" said me.

That's it. That's the conversation. I had two emotions at this point. Confusion, for obvious reasons, and fear, because the person could be a ghost of a person once killed by pirates sitting on the very rocking chair her grandma sat on when she heard the news about the fire that killed her high school principal and secret lover, who were one in the same. My dog can be quite the wuss, so rather than force a pensive ghost into a conversation about joviality, I continued my walk.

About seven minutes later a thought occured to me. I remembered how the person's head sat perfectly atop the railing around the porch. I remembered how the rocking chair appeared not to rock. Then it dawned on me, I might have said hello to a potted plant. Whooops.

Since potted plants are under no obligation to return a cheery greeting, as they are a rude species by nature, I felt better.