Fear is a normal thing, an evolutionary trait that is a useful thing in keeping you alive. Daredevil, the so called ‘Man Without Fear’ could only be that because he had cool radar blind-guy stuff in place of fear that kept him alive.
Though fear is also a crippling hurdle. It is why I no longer talk to women, why I can’t pre-game drinks before the pub, why I don’t go to the pub, also why I dress up when I don’t go to the pub.
Fear is with us people and mostly it is normal. Sometimes its stupid and hair-triggered. But there is a pretty large grey area, a DMZ of rational and irrational fear that hides in the folds of each and every day.
Using The Phone As A Phone.
I am no real fan of the phone. Thats not really true. A phone nowadays, in twerking country, is very different to what a phone once was though. Nick Offerman, in his Netflix special ‘American Ham’, said the phone used to be something you could hang up. Now, obviously, it is something you can carry with you and look at all the time. I do that and I am for that. I have some nostalgia for the good old days of unresolved arguments about nothing, but I do like the digital ability to find anything out RIGHT NOW.
Though the unbridled convenience the digital age has afforded us, largely on the phone, is all the more why I dread answering the fucking thing. I am too old a new-dog to do practical old tricks. Talking on the telephone is hard 90s.
The Real Hard 90s.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not when friends call- then I usually answer. And it goes without my saying it anyway, the better the friend the more likely I am to swipe whichever way will get their voice piping down the electric magic that is modern tech. But see, my friends don’t call that much because there are a million other avenues of communication in these rapidly changing times.
When an unknown number calls though, it is sheer terror. ‘Who are they?’,’What do they want?’, ‘Why are they calling now?’ and so on. If you live a loose life you wonder if the call is about money, it mostly always is.
Worse is calling others. I did a feature article for Uni on bowls clubs, as I have spoken of, and any reasonable person will tell you that a dozen emails ending in ‘bigpond.com’ aren’t likely to yield a response, still I persevered. Praying that there was one slightly tech-davy golden oldie in the mix. Why, because I hate calling people.
Even factoring in the worst thing is a ‘fuck you I hope you die’ and figuring that not so bad, I am a thin skinned man.
And as a result I don’t go to the phone, except to look at Facebook and pictures of nude arses every few minutes.
Answering The Door.
If people calling was a dinosaur move steeped in dread for me, imagine the door-bell ringing. No friend would ring the door bell. True friends come through the back door.
A Silk-Sheet Test Determined This Was True.
But a ring out front? Terror. As a renter, or tenant, or whatever I always assume it is the land-lord, a charity collector my weak will won’t let me say no to, someone selling something I will buy or a pissed off neighbour.
Any way you slice it it works out bad. All of those people hold the power and most of them don’t even know it, like a kid with a flame-thrower. I get my brother to answer the door most times, I ignore the knock the rest of the time.
I do have one older friend who does the polite thing, but usually he has texted before coming by so I keep an eagle eye out for him. Otherwise, just show up, don’t keep my waiting for the bullet.
Smelling Bad.
I work a manual job and I smoke. In some sense, I am a double-threat. Though really the only double-threat is to my heart, lungs, pancreas and all the other little packets of meat that are keeping me a citizen.
The Only Double-Threat Worth Paying For.
But my odour is always on my mind, like, always- to the point of breathing insanity. See, my boss is a staunch non-smoker and not close to the heavy-sweater I am. I try not to stink for him. Then, I deliver heavy furniture upstairs a fair part of the time or deliver heavy furniture to overheated offices all the time.
I am bound to stink, at least some of the time. That is life, we huff it, we move on and we all have a merry Christmas. But I worry ceaselessly about it, smelling like smoke and man on getting a signing for a delivery because someone- and I shan't name names- decided to keep their office at a crisp 35 degrees to cater for the one forty-kilogram Asian chick who works there. Work-place bureaucracy gone mad.
As a result, I douse my clothing with a good dose of women spray in the morning, slather my underarms and neck and smoking fingers with a hard shot of roll-on before work and take a pull on the no-name toothpaste I keep in my bag three to four times a day. The things you gotta do to stay employed.
The Land-Lord and The Real Estate
As a renter, or tenant, or whatever you might as well be getting arse-fucked every day. They have all the power and you have none. I have had my bond sheared from me more times than I’d like to remember and it is all because they dress in suits and abuse themselves with perfume and cologne and seem like they will win, so they do. And so, bond is free money.
As a result whenever there is an inspection, there is not a Noel Pride. I walk the dog, hide in a park, go to work or get lunch at 10 A.M, or late breakfast. I cannot deal with their criticisms. Though one thing remains constant- the text to my brother.
Are We Fucked?
Wherever I am it is the same thing, ‘Go OK?’. My brother is an optimist, and clearly more of an adult than I could hope to be. Though you have to sacrifice your first-born to get a house and they want everything from you. They complained about my curtains being tied up.
We have had our heater out since we moved in. Not a problem until winter hit, the coldest in some time. We called the real-estate when it got too much, they send the land-lord.
He brought a ‘plumber’, which I can only assume means ‘friend familiar with pipes’ in Mandarin. Any who, he couldn’t fix it and told my brother and his girl-friend ’10-20 Days’ then, moments later, told me ’20-30’ days. That has to have been a month ago. We live in blanket and hot-water-bottle town.
Though it was nice to see the ashtrays emerge when the guy and his ‘plumber’ were gone.
NP.
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