Too Many Words...

This one was my attempt to be cryptically insightful about being an ESL teacher after I first started.

In a Nutshell

Louis walked into the bar and stops. After letting his eyes adjust to the dim frosted lights and he blinked and realized that his initial assertion of the situation was correct. There was a small monkey standing on the bar.

No one else seemed to be paying it much mind, so Louis sat down near it for a closer look. He nestled into a red plush stool and fixes a quizzical gaze on the simian. Minutes pass but the monkey does little else but a horrible job of polishing an empty beer stein with a bar rag.

"Why don't you order something?" The bartender asked. He had hitherto gone unnoticed due to his autumn wardrobe and non-monkeyness.

"From him?" Louis said, pointing.

"Yeah."

"Okay," Louis brightened with the novelty of it. He spoke slowly and clearly, "I'll have a beer. Whatever you have on tap is fine."

Not surprisingly but somewhat disappointingly the monkey did not tip his little hat and comply.

Louis waited for a moment but would have felt silly repeating himself. He looked back to the bartender who honestly looked far too bored to be pulling a prank.

"Do you think he understood me?"

The bartender furrowed his brow , "Well of course not, he's a monkey can't you see?"

"Then why did you tell me to order from him?"

"Well he is a bartender isn't he? Lord knows I don't pay him all that money for nuthin," The other man said in that special tone reserved for dull children.

"Why would you hire a bartender that can't serve drinks?" Louis asked with rising exasperation.

"He's a monkey!" the man said, "Isn't that enough?"

Since I'm finally going to close up my myspace account I thought I should find somewhere new to post my old ramblings (and maybe get up to some new ones). So here's a few posts that I didn't want to blink into internet extinction.

"Then maybe you shouldn't have eaten those advent candles," The jolly man said back with a laugh.

I always get sick at Christmas time. Its like my body's own little gift to me every yuletide. Sure its never the gift I want but I do still appreciate the thought. It seems like this year he was only able to scrape together a bit of a stomach bug, but that's alright I know that last years three week extravaganza must have exhausted his budget and imagination.

Why do I get sick, I dunno. Could be just a manifestation of my distaste for the commercialization of Christmas into a physical ailment. Do I have that strong a distaste? Well I don't perceive it, so it must be manifesting itself elsewhere. That makes sense right?

I used to think of myself as someone who never gets sick. But then I noticed how many people I knew who claimed that they never got sick either. Then I though about all the times I had seen them sick. One girl I used to work with would come in looking like she was about to film a nyquil commercial at least twice a month, and each time it happened she would say; "I don't understand, I never get sick!". Perhaps some people jsut don't know the definition of the word healthy.

Me, I've come to the realization that I do get sick. And if you prick me I will bleed. Then I will hit you. I'm not invincible, and should stop making assumptions to the otherwise. Its like when I was a kid and was fairly confident that if the need was urgent enough I should be able to catch an arrow. With the assumption that an arrow flying at me would be an urgent enough need. Now keep in mind I couldn't even catch a baseball. But then I guess the baseball thing was disproved on a regular basis whereas the arrow thing still remains untested (and therefore true) until this day.

Well in any case its good to get sick once in a while, keep the immune system battle ready and all that. Sure its never fun to be feeling like you've got a head full of wet cotton or to have to plan your day geographically around restrooms, but then it makes you appreciate your health so much more when you re-attain it.

Oh and just so everyone knows I'm well aware of vitamin C. It seems that when people get sick the entire rest of humanity feels a sudden need to inform this person of the wonders of ascorbic acid. And if they would only eat a diet comprised entirely of this nutrient they would never get sick. They only downside is that much like being a Mormon you'd have to spend your free time paying this knowledge forward.

But the best part about being sick is that at least it happens at its worst to me at a time like Christmas where everything else is generally so up and positive that it never gets me too down.

I'm sorry for the navel gazing here, I realize that this subject must seem really disconnected to all of my friends. Because obviously none of you ever get sick.