Cards and faces

And action...

It has been awhile since I posted something. This web journal thing is tougher than I give it credit for. I told myself I would write everyday and I think I end up writing every week.

Beedoo.

Lets see here, what do I want to talk about...

Something funny which may progress into something interesting, poignant and cool.

At work a new full-timer was transferred to the Kalamazoo tire store, his name is Christian and he wears a gold crucifix around his neck that he likes to flip out of his collar so everyone knows or thinks they know that he has accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior. It makes me kind of sick and annoyed. But that's just me. There is something I dislike about broadcasting things like that; it's ostentatious. It is also an effigy of a man being tortured. What can you say about a person who wears a torture device around his neck?

That reminds me of that catholic hospital I took my brother to. In the recovery room was a tortured man on a cross bleeding from a spear wound to his heart, with a crown of thorns. Nothing says "get well soon" like that. If there was some other torture device hanging on the wall would it creep you out? Like the Pear, that thing that was inserted into the anus or the vagina and cranked like a pepper shaker, which caused it to open with spikes ripping and tearing as it expanded. Or perhaps the Iron Maiden, or The Rack. Why do I know so much about the torture devices of the Spanish Inquisition? The world may never know. My brother looked at that tortured man and said, "I hope I don't end up like that guy."

Anyway, Christian comes out back and says, "You will be installing two new tires on the Ford Tortoise."

One of the other employees says, "You mean Taurus?"

Christian says, "Taurus means Tortoise, doesn't it Poetry? Help me out here." He calls me Poetry to make fun of me for writing poetry. That's the kind of guy he is. I disliked him instantly when he said it.

"No, Taurus is Latin for bull. The word you are looking for is 'Tortuca' the Latin word for Tortoise." I impressed myself. I didn't know that I knew that. I instantly felt like I knew how everyone was looking at me at that moment, not physically, but mentally. I am still new to the store, they don't fully understand just how smart I really am. I don't mean to brag, I really don't. It's just a fact that I vacillate between sheer brilliance and stupidity, but my brilliant moments outshine my stupid moments. Usually. And if I can have more brilliant moments than stupid ones, or if someone only sees my brilliant moments, think of how that colors their perception of me, their understanding of who I am. Conversely, think of how people see/perceive/understand you if you mostly do stupid things around them.

I imagine Loo thinks I am pretty dumb, because I do most of the dumb things I do around her. Imagine when Loo meets a guy from work and the guy says, "Wow that Brian guy is pretty smart." It might clash with everything she knows and she might say, "Huh? Really?" Or maybe she knows how smart I am. Who knows? Who knows what other people think about you, or me? Moreover, who cares? I am who I am, and at the end of the day the only person that has to live with me and my decisions is me.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Christian was angry because he was wrong and he said he was leaving the conversation because I wouldn't help him out. And I said something like, "I can't help you out if you are wrong." And he said whatever and left.

He came back later and tried to make a joke. Just so you know: if you have to say, "That was a joke." It wasn't. And you should stop saying things like that, especially if you say, "That was a joke," a lot. Christian's joke went something like this: Bird flu and pig flu were bad, killed lots of people, but Rhinovirus hadn't killed many people at all. You would think that because its a rhino-virus it would kick our butt compared to bird and pig flu.

I will admit it is a cute word game and I could have some fun with it in a piece of writing. After he said 'Bird and Pig flu' I expected some other giant animal-like flu that would seem to be much worse. It followed the joke formula of: if Plant food is made out of plants, and fish food is made out of fish, what is baby food made out of?

So when nobody laughed he droped his smileand tried a serious face on. Someone asked if it was a joke. (if someone has to ask if your joke was a joke, it wasn't and you should modify your joke behavior) He answered, "not really. I mean if you are naming diseases, wouldn't you expect of the choices bird, pig and rhino that rhino would be the worst?"

Evidently the funny card had failed and he was moving to the intellectual card. the intellectual card is usually my card, and I usually have more than one, and they are often arranged into a royal flush, so save yourself the trouble and fold early because I never bluff.

This is what was going on in my head: Avian flu and swine flu are versions of influenza that originated from the avian flu strain, which originally came from the Spanish flu of 1928. Rhino virus is a nose cold, a virus that gives nose symptoms like runny nose, stuffy nose etc. They are not related. Rhino comes from Latin, it means nose. Virus also comes from latin (Venenum) meaning poison or venom. So Venom/poison [that attacks/effects/targets] the nose. Side note: Rhinoceros, rino + ceros, means nose + horn, Nosehorn.

When everyone was pouting their lips in that expression that means 'Huh. I never thought of that before, perhaps you are right. But I don't want to say that you are because I am not sure I like you yet,' I said, "Rhino means nose." He dropped his serious face and tried on his hurt face.

"I'm leaving because this conversation isn't going anywhere." And he left.

I didn't miss him. Although I did look forward to him saying stupid things in the future that everyone almost believed before I could thwart it with a couple words.

I have to say I may seem like the smarty-pants-asshole-guy who goes out of his way to make other people feel dumb, and in so doing makes himself look like he is trying too hard, like a mean spirited intellectual-tool. But that isn't true. I take great pains not to do that, it is my intellectual responsibility to not do that. But Christian tried to make fun of me, and has earned my disdain because of it, and I don't have to try very hard to make him look silly in front of everyone. So there.

FIN