It is my dearest wish to meet as many of you T13ers in person as possible. I don’t know how likely that is, seeing that we are scattered around the world, but it is a lovely idea. However, if it does happen, and I say one of the following things, then leap up from your chair and head for the hills, because it means that the Pod People have arrived and they are taking us over, one by one, as we sleep. If you run fast enough, you may save yourself. You will know it isn’t really me because these are
Thirteen Things You Will Never Hear Me Say
1. “I don’t think I’ll buy a book right now, thank you.” What an utterly preposterous idea! You can never have too any books. I have about 1200 in the room where I am sitting now and there is shelf space for about a couple of hundred more. When that is filled up, I’ll buy more shelves. I have been a bibliophile since I was about 10, and I don’t regret it for a second.
2. “Take me out to the ball game.” I was obviously born without a sports gene. There is nothing more likely to reduce me to a state of catatonic boredom than sport of any kind. Ok, I get it. People, alone or in teams, hit, kick, throw or otherwise propel balls here and there and somehow or other score points. Yawn. One exception. Every four years the World Cup takes place, and I really get into that. That is followed by another three years and eleven months of total indifference. So, I am next due to enjoy sport in the summer of 2010.
3. “Please pass the vegetables.” I posted about this elsewhere in my blog some months ago. While I love most kinds of fruit, I heartily loathe almost all vegetables. It is beyond my ability to understand how people can put that green compost in their mouths, let alone bite down on it and swallow it.
4. “Cats are people too, you know.” I’m very fond of our cats. I make a fuss of them, I enjoy their company and they do seem to be fond of me in return. But they are cats, not people. They can’t speak, they can’t write, they certainly can’t blog, not even in baby talk, and they are not concerned with most of the things that engage my interest. There are lots of things going on in my life that do not remotely involve cats. I’m just glad to have them around when I’m at home. They are lovely animals.
5. “Baby, you can drive my car” No, sorry, that’s not going to happen. My wife can't operate a manual transmission, so I am the only one who drives our car. The insurance doesn’t cover anyone else anyway. So, it’s just me, myself and I behind the wheel.
6. “I hope it snows” Don’t get me wrong. Snow is fine in its place – on mountains and Christmas cards. It’s when it gets absolutely everywhere that it becomes such a pest. It is very deceptive, because for the first few hours after its arrival it looks so pretty, and as soon as you step out of doors there is a muffled silence about the place that makes you think you have stepped into some charming land of snowmen and elves, where your daily reality is somehow cleansed by this coating of soft, downy white. This of course does not last. Snow is cold, intrusive, it gets in the way of you going from A to B and it forces you to wrap up in several extra layers of clothing before you leave the sanctuary of your home. It can even kill. It hangs around for days, weeks or even months (I have experienced several Canadian winters). There is an apocryphal story that the Inuit have dozens of words to describe different kinds of snow. We have only three – snow, sleet and slush. In Florida, I am happily spared further acquaintance with all three.
7. “Yes” (to the question “Does this make me look fat?”) Because I enjoy life and do not wish for it to end suddenly!
8. “Lets go see slasher movie” These were, probably still are, very popular. As far as I can gather, they follow a set formula, and they make money hand over fist. I can not bring myself to go see one. I know they are classed as horror but I think of them more as revulsion movies – an opportunity for a very unpleasant kind of man to see women, often teenaged girls, being terrified, mutilated and killed. I’m not in favour of banning anything, but I want no part of it.
9. “Appropriate” This word has been so overused, and "inappropriate" too, over the last decade or two that it has lost its original meaning. I hate it. It sounds mealy mouthed and divisive. “That’s inappropriate!” meaning : “I don’t like it, so you can’t do it.” So many better words one can use.
10. “Let’s go for an Indian” as they say in England. Meaning, let us repair to a nearby Indian restaurant to partake of a repast consisting of their ethnic cuisine. Indian food is the most popular ethnic food in Britain, with Indian restaurants all over the place. But I have never set foot in one, because I just can’t stand the stuff, or spicy food of any kind. Season food with herbs as much as you like. I adore continental cuisine of all kinds. But spoil it by bunging in a load of spices to cover the taste and burn your mouth; that makes no sense to me. Ugh!
11. “Let me show you how to juggle” Much as I would love to, I am incapable of doing anything like that. I am not merely right handed, but am so non-left-handed that I lack the co-ordination needed to do things like juggle. I once remarked that my left hand only serves to stop the blood leaking out of the end of my arm
12. “Let’s use the drive thru” I’ve never liked using those things. I hate the whole business of ordering food by shouting from my car into a concealed microphone somewhere, relaying orders from other people in the vehicle, asking the voice at the other end of the loudspeaker to repeat herself because she is unintelligible, and having to make up my mind what I’m going to eat as quickly as possible because there are two or three other impatient cars behind me. I prefer to park, get out of my car, and make an unhurried decision about what I want, order in a normal, conversational tone, and hand the cash to someone whom I can understand. Far more civilized all round.
13. “In my humble opinion” Nah! They are never humble!
.