I am an enthusiastic (obsessed) collector of anything from my childhood. In addition to this I am passionate about books, preferably first edition consisting again of anything from my childhood, along with a more eclectic grown up range of genres and authors.  I am a ‘spirited’ collector – as hunting stalking and scoring the kill no matter what (although violence is my last resort – normally).

Yesterday, a 5 year search ended.  The laborious hunt involved three elusive childhood books, sketchy details of each plot had lurked in the back of my mind but recalling titles  had proved impossible.  Further adding to my frustration was the failure of the usually reliable Google – seemingly I had run out of options.

During my hunt, I had stumbled across a website called Loganberry books that offered a service by the name of ‘stump the bookseller’ whereby you could submit a sketchy outline of the plot of your forgotten treasure in the hope that the internet audience would know the title of your book.   Could this be the answer to solving my mystery?  I was desperate so I gave it a shot.  A week later much to my amazement all three of my stumpers were solved.  It was the equivalent to winning first division in tattslotto -well almost.

This momentous occasion started me thinking about the reasons why people collect things and I came to the conclusion that there are basically three types of collectors:

1.    Serial Killers (Trophy collectors),
2.    Nostalgic’s, and
3.    Acquirers

The Serial Killer Type

Fans of the show Dexter would know that pulp fiction serial killers have a compulsion to collect trophies from their victims.  In Dexter’s case he likes to collect small blood samples from each of his victims and stores these samples in a little purpose built wooden box, which he hides in the air-conditioning unit of his apartment (Personally I think this is a stupid hiding spot).  Ultimately what use is Dexter’s collection?  I mean, can you imagine Dexter displaying his victim’s blood samples in a mahogany display cabinet and using this as a conversation starter?  Well this might be the case if he was discussing his collection with his peers and exchanging tips on how best to preserve body parts.

We know that many serial killers collect souvenirs from their victims as “trophies,” some experts will argue that the killer is trying to capture the moment so they can remember the kill later through the souvenir. It’s also about possession, order and control.  A blood sample is simple, doesn’t talk back and can be ordered and controlled unlike the real world.   Here’s a thought -maybe we should rehabilitate serial killers by teaching them to replace their murderous collecting habits with more positive ones.  For example Royal Doulton china or porcelain animal figurines…..hmmm Dexter would need to consider moving his animal figurines from his air-conditioning unit to a larger storage space!

The Nostalgic’s

We nostalgic’s are a funny breed.  We hunt down artefacts from our childhood, which is quite ironic because I remember wanting to throw all my childhood nick nacks and toys  away when I hit 13.  I cleaned out my room and removed the last toy from my toy basket and without a last thought I threw away my toy basket and it was done – I was now a proud grown up.

As we get older, something changes, it usually starts with casual conversation.

“Oh, remember how good it was when we were growing up?” we say to our friends.

“Yes, we had all these great toys and games, its just so different now, kids just sit in front of the T.V and computer…tsk tsk tsk.”

The nostalgic yearns for an era gone by as we reminisce about childhood days.  Is it because we feel that things were better when we were children, simpler, more joyful perhaps?  Are we trying to relive a fraction of those moments or escape to a better world because adult life is just too difficult or somehow lacking the simple pleasure of childhood? When I look at my strawberry shortcake collection I remember how good Apple Dumpling smelt when I took her fresh out of the box as a child. When I read ‘Where the Wild things are’ I remember how wide-eyed and excited I felt listening about Max and his adventures with the mythical monsters.

How much do we have to collect before we Noslagic’s are satisfied?  Does it all depend on how much room you have in your house……..or air-conditioning unit.

Is satisfaction even possible? I often wonder though if we yearn for a sensation that we only think we felt in the past, one that never really existed. That if we really were transported back somehow to that moment, the moment would be wrong, off, like flat coca cola or a day old doughnut.

The Acquirers

I like to think of the Acquirer as the ‘maybe serial killer’ or the ‘serial killer without the killing bit’.  Surely we all know an Acquirer-  someone who likes to collect something as a hobby- books, stamps, coins, miniature cars, antiques, of in the case of Dexter, the reformed serial killer – porcelain animal figurines and Royal Doulton china.

Let’s try to get into the head of ‘The Aquirer’.   The first thing that comes to mind is order.  Generally, most stamp or coin collectors are very fastidious about their collections – dust free in hermetically sealed chambers, everything is labelled and strategically placed in an album or coin slots. One stamp or coin in the set going astray could cause a disproportionate reaction. Have you seen how much collectors pay for the objects of their desire on e-bay?  Is this how some people create order and maintain an illusion of control in an increasingly chaotic world?

So there you have it, a complete, through and accurate breakdown of the three types of collectors.

In summary all three categories collect for a variety of reasons:

• the serial killer: control, order, happy reminiscences, what better way to remember a kill by sleeping with the rotting head for a month;
• the nostalgic: for sentimentality i.e. remembering the smell of plastic infused apple blossom; and the longing for a real or imagined better time long past; and
• the acquirer: for maintaining a sense of order providing nothing in the collection goes missing.

Are we all really that dissimilar, perhaps we are all chasing the same elusive thing, each of us going about it a different way, never quite satisfied, always chasing the next book, toy, stamp or person to kill. What are we really looking for?

To this day I am haunted by the stories my family told me whilst I was growing up.  Old wives tales, white lies, urban legend, superstition, folk lore.  Or how about we remove the sugar coating and call it plain old BS!

I am certain that everyone remembers being told a story or two from childhood that was later found to be not only untrue, but a down right despicable load of ‘I cant believe you told me that pile of baloney’.  For example, we were strictly instructed (on pain of a horrible twisted death)to not to eat before swimming because we would drown. Or that eating bread crusts make your hair curly, or how about if you crossed your eyes they would stay that way forever!

Unfortunately for me I had a dose of the more unusual stories feature during this aspect of ‘parental guidance’.

I clearly remember enjoying a nice juicy mandarin at the age of eight and couldn’t be bothered spitting out the pips when my grandmother cried out in horror.  “Oh my god, don’t swallow the pips!” She continued to rant and rave explaining that the pips were going to take root in my stomach, sprout, grow until eventually they would cut me open to find a good sized mandarin tree growing in my stomach. I was horrified.  This wasn’t the first time I had swallowed pips, was it too late for me?  How many mandarin trees were growing in my stomach?  Most kids can’t sleep at night because of the boogie man – that terrifying creature that lives under the bed or in the cupboard at night.  But not me, I was petrified of the mandarin tree growing in my stomach.

The stories get even better.

Chewing wads of gum was one of my favourite hobbies,  this involved  ongoing episodes of chewing different flavours of Hubba Bubba – grape, strawberry, orange, even the plain old original flavour would do.  How deeply satisfying it was to chew like a cow, blow bubbles, pop and snap my gum until the flavour disappeared,  the worn out piece would simply be replaced with a fresh one and  the cow chewing would start all over again.   I could always count on my grandmother to ‘burst my bubble’ by announcing that chewing gum was very bad because it sucked the blood right out of my body.  Can you imagine the visual image this creates for a child!

I am convinced my family were tag team tale tellers. My father was just as responsible for messing with my head – as if my mother and grandmother weren’t enough. During certain times of the year, large toadstools would appear in the garden.  This would coincide with the sighting of what I used to call ‘fairies’ – the seed from dandelion flowers that sometimes float through the air.    My father would warn me that touching the toadstools would lead to a certain death and that the ‘fairies’ were the guardian of the toadstools.   I started to fear the fairies and every time I saw the stupid dandelion seed float past me I would quiver with terror.  I mean there are some pretty strange fears that people have in life but to be frightened of a floating flower seed?!  My older cousin Steve took advantage of this and enjoyed gathering a collection of dandelion seeds whilst chasing me around the garden. To this day I feel a slight jolt of panic when I spy a dandelion seed or two floating by……

(sketch courtesy doug mcguire)

Looking back I wonder why I was told these things.  Did I have an evil family?   Were they hatching plans to turn me into an insane adult?  Of course not, like all fables or cautionary tales there is an ulterior motive.

Do you think I would have stopped the annoying snapping and popping of my gum if my grandmother had simply asked me to  -  absolutely not!  Granny had to get creative and find a better way to stop me and Hubba Bubba from eternal love.

Why did my dad tell me that the toadstool would give me the touch of death?  Because he obviously thought I was stupid enough to be tempted by the toadstool and take a bite while I was out playing in the garden with my barbie dolls.  As for the mandarin tree growing in my stomach, well I don’t know what my grandmother was trying to achieve there…

In fact, most fairy tales that we know today started in just the same way that they did in my family – either trying to keep young children safe from harm, or to manipulate their behaviour towards whatever then social norms of the day were. Many tales like Hansel and Gretel, and the Little Red Riding Hood are cautions about stranger danger or wandering off alone.

I think I got off lightly; the lies I was told kept me alive or prevented me from annoying my family.  I didn’t eat the mushrooms, I stopped chewing gum like a cow and as for the mandarin pips…..what a load of rubbish – actually come to think of it my stomach hurt the other day…….

As you get older illness, death and funerals become a common event. Let’s get one thing straight there is nothing funny about death itself but sometimes there are absurdly funny moments in the process, well at least in my (disturbed?) mind!

To illustrate this absurdity I have decided to reveal my own recent hypochondriacal experience, much to my partner’s amusement who has now scored at least years worse of good teasing material.

I had come down with a mysterious virus that presented with flu like symptoms and included a fainting spell just for good measure. I scheduled a consultation with “Dr Google” who summarily diagnosed me with a mixture of obscure and life threatening diseases.

“But Julian, how can I have a virus without a fever or a sore throat,” I mumbled, or
“Oh my god maybe its lupus, I have all the symptoms, hmmm but perhaps a thyroid problem, that explains the aching muscles and the thirst.”

To make things worse I had to wait a day before I could get a real doctor’s appointment, you can do a lot of psychological damage in 24 hours. By morning I was convinced that I was dying.

“Julian, I have had the flu before, and my body didn’t feel like this, it was achy in a different way!’ I wailed. ‘I am telling you something is seriously wrong!’

Convinced I was dying I found the energy to find my overnight bag , I must have looked like a crazy old women, hunched over, hair wild I began to pack my bag with the belief the doctor was going to send me straight to hospital.

By the look on Julian’s face I could tell he was thinking about sending me to a different kind of hospital. He watched my neuroticism unfold while I packed my bag with the essentials, pajamas, underwear, ugg boots and of course the all important dental supplies – toothbrush and dental floss.

My blood tests were perfect, with the exception of low vitamin D, which the doctor assured me was quite unrelated to the virus I was apparently battling.

…. hmm I wonder what Dr Google says about low vitamin D?

The funeral

If you have read my baby down pour article, you would know that ritual ceremonies such as weddings, christenings and baby showers are really not my thing. A funeral is no exception; it’s the ritual that bothers me, doing things without really knowing why we do them. Well, I hear you ask isn’t it obvious why we go to funerals? Sure, we go to say goodbye to the departed, which is fine. However it’s the strange proceedings that are ritually bound to occur that I question. A perfect example of this is my grandmother’s funeral.

When my grandmother passed away, I was treated to a series of curious and mysterious Australian-Greek funeral rituals.

The first peculiarity was the refusal to allow me to make a speech for my grandmother in the Greek church. I wont repeat the first thing that came out of my mouth when I was told this, and when I asked why I couldn’t make a speech no one could tell me the reason. Gender, age? No answer was forthcoming. I insisted that my grandmother’s brother ring the priest and ask him to make an exception. I knew from here on end this funeral was going to be a tough gig and I was right.

The day before the funeral, my partner and I were given very strict instructions from my auntie about what to go out and buy for the funeral and the Greek version of the wake after the burial. In no particular order:

1. one purple towel.
2. dry biscuits from the Greek bakery; and
3. solo (this was my grandmother’s favourite soft drink).

When we returned my auntie looked through the goods and told me off for not buying the correct shade of purple towel – apparently it was too bright and not the appropriate shade of purple. Funeral purple had a unique RGB number it seemed. As I found out later, the colour purple is religiously symbolic but the towel itself was for people to dry their hands with. No mystery there.

I was questioned at length by two alternating interrogators regarding the dry biscuits. The ingredients were scrutinized, texture and consistency checked, use by dates validated. One can only imagine what would have happened if I had bought the ones with sugar instead. As for the diet solo, well I had bought 2 litre bottles instead of 1.5 litre bottles; apparently the 2 litre size was too large and not very aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

All this was going on whilst my uncle was rationing serves of olives from a very large tin whilst bringing to my attention that the olives at a funeral have to be black and of a particular variety.

Clearly I was going insane.

Two choices presented my way:

a) bite my tongue and keep silent; or
b) explode and point out that this is a funeral and not a catering function – priorities people, priorities!

Sigh, I kept my mouth shut for the sake of keeping the peace, the day was stressful enough without me making things worse – so I did what all women would do, took it out on Julian instead.

On the day of the funeral, the hearse arrived at my mother’s house with the casket and of course my grandmother inside. The hearse had been around the block, in order to give my grandmother one final tour of her old neighborhood my uncle explained. Ah of course, I thought to myself, makes sense for a dead person to enjoy one last sight seeing trip before they spend eternity 6 feet under.

The boot of the hearse was opened and all the mourners gathered around the car while incense burners offering prayers to my grandmother’s soul wafted thin smoke through the air. There was much wailing. The spell was broken when I heard the sound of gushing water, I looked over my shoulder to find an old Greek women had turned the garden hose on. Thinking this was not the time to tend to the plants and having a thought for the current water restrictions in Melbourne I walked over to investigate. I was assured that flow of water helps to release the soul into heaven. Maybe I have watched too many movies but doesn’t the soul usually float up to heaven in a tunnel of light? I never recalled water being involved in this process.

At the church service the priest swung his jangling string of bells back and forward, back and forward releasing a sweet aromatic smell of burning frankincense and chanted in ancient Greek, I had absolutely no idea what he was saying, he could have been chanting out a recipe for Italian pasta sauce and I would not have known any different. Whispering to mum, I asked her “what is the priest saying, does it mean anything to you?’” Mum stared at me at shrugged. “I guess he is blessing her spirit,” she replied. I wasn’t satisfied with her answer; after all I couldn’t see the priest turning on the garden hose.

After the cemetery, everyone bundled into the hall, of course wiping their hands with the un-approved purple towel before they sat down to eat the biscuits (without sugar), drink diet solo from bottles that were too large for the tables and eat the right type of black olives. A relative muttered about the flowers on my grandmother’s casket, apparently they weren’t quite to her liking. Whoops forgot to consult with the family on the flowers, what was I thinking!

Back at mum’s house, someone had made a little shrine in the corner of the kitchen table with a large photograph of my grandmother next to some flowers and candles. I noticed a cup of water nearby and assumed someone had forgotten it there so I went to tip it out. The old lady who had turned on the garden hose earlier in the day suddenly materialized frantically telling me that she had placed it there so that my grandmother’s spirit could drink. I had thought her spirit had already been released to heaven by the hose? Why would she need a drink back here in the house? But I dutifully refilled the cup and returned it to its rightful place. I certainly wouldn’t want to be responsible for interfering with my grandmother’s thirst.

Why do we care about the right shade of purple or the right sized bottle of solo or placing a cup of water near the photo of our dearly departed when clearly the departed are not going to care?

Maybe the grieving family is under pressure to put on an impressive show? After all we wouldn’t want people talking about how much they dislike the flowers on the casket now would we?

Or is it because people need to have order, structure and predictability in the chaos and unpredictability of death? Maybe it’s easier to follow the well-worn path of funeral traditions and in doing so lessen the pain of the loss.

Should we not feel free to deal with death and grieving in a way that is meaningful to us, so that everything we do is done deliberately and with knowledge of its true meaning? Or would that be too much to bear?

Either way I know that a hose, purple towels, dry biscuits, and the right olives won’t be featuring at my funeral – time to work on my will.’

They say you learn something new every day and last week the expression ‘knuckle dragger’ was introduced into my vocabulary.   My partner Julian and I had returned from visiting a girlfriend Alex, who had been entertaining us with disastrous date stories.  Julian announced that Alex would never find the right guy if she continued to date ‘knuckle draggers”.

“Hu, a knuckle duster?” came the reply from me.

“No” he replied “although a knuckle dragger is likely to wear a knuckle duster. You know a guy who walks on his knuckles, like a cave man who grunts here and there and has no brains- your friend dates gorillas.”

The image of a caveman waving his club over a struggling screaming woman while dragging her back to his cave hovered in a little cartoon-like white bubble over my head.  Intrigued about knuckle draggers, I punch the term into my good friend google and courtesy of wiktionary find the following definition:

“A reference to a man’s state in the process of evolution in an attempt to show that they have either regressed or did not progress to walking upright.”

Oh the horror it’s true, my friend along with many other intelligent women share this seemingly incurable infliction. Why do women date knuckle draggers?

The contradiction

If you have read my platitudes or vanilla article you will know that I like to look at history as a starting point to help explain my theories.  Well folks this time I turn to a different source – my friend Alex who is 35, single and still lives with her parents.

Let’s examine Alex’s dating profile.   Alex claims to be most attracted to the quirky, George Costanza type – men on the chubby side (and or bald) with a sense of humour.  She also claims the standard line that looks aren’t really important, it’s the personality and brains that count.   Yet its fascinating because her wish list seems to be quite contradictory to the type of men she actually dates, in fact she has never dated or shown interest in anyone even approaching this description.  Every man she has dated has been a knuckle dragger.

Take John the gardener for example.   John and Alex met 10 years ago and had gone out once – ultimately unsuccessfully.  John never returned Alex’s call and that was the last she heard from him.

Until…

Coincidentally 10 years down the track, Alex’s father had decided he had enough of cutting the lawn and decided to call a random mowing company he found in the local paper. Who should turn up on Alex’s front door, yep you guessed correctly -it was John.

When I caught up with Alex she had told me that she had been home when John had first turned up to cut the lawn. She could hardly contain how excited she was to see that John’s manly forearms hadn’t changed in muscularity over the last 10 years.  I found my eyes glazing over as she recounted the way his forearm hair was glistening in the sun and then it hit me.  Since when was muscular forearms on Alex’s wish list, what happened to the quirky chubby funny guy?

A year has passed since the glistening forearm hair encounter and what has unfolded to date?  Well it depends on who you ask.  If you ask me, I would say not much, but if you ask Alex she would tell you a different story.  Here are the two versions.

Alex’s version

There is a sense of mystery lurking around John – he was married once but it lasted only five months, he doesn’t really talk about this much though.   It doesn’t matter because Alex is getting closer to solving the mystery of John by breaking down and dissecting John’s personality in minute detail.   According to Alex his time in the army has stripped him down and built him up again so this explains why John doesn’t really let people in and explains why he gets defensive if he is forced into doing something he doesn’t want to do. The fact that he doesn’t share his thoughts and feelings or engage in simulating conversation is all part of this defense mechanism. Alex is certain that John has depths to his personality that need to be plumbed and by god she is on a mission – to find a little sensitive gem buried deep inside him.

My version

Alex is clearly delusional.

Alex is convinced that there are great hidden depths to John and believes that she has developed an accurate psychological profile of him  – the like of which would impress Sigmund Freud.  The truth of the matter is very simple, there are no complex thoughts in John’s head, Alex creates the mystery and then wants to figure the mystery out. As Julian says, “there aint no mystery here sweetheart”.

Alex is obviously confused and while thinking she wants a quirky smart guy she is actually most attracted to the knuckle dragger type who while holding some initial allure ultimately fail to satisfy her in the long term.

Is there any hope for Alex? Can she escape the knuckle dragger curse? Why do women like Alex continue to date knuckle draggers when these liaisons invariably end in disaster and disappointment?

Perhaps it’s simply a phase that needs to be grown out of – date enough dullards and gorillas, you learn to love the George Costanza when he comes along?

Or Is it the gamblers fallacy? Put enough coins into the slot machine they might actually hit the jackpot (i.e. an actual conversation).

Maybe, it’s just simply biology – these women themselves are knuckle draggers and like attracts like?

For Alex and other women who find themselves single and dating the knuckle dragger, its time to take a long hard at who you date and why otherwise its TV dinners for one for a lot longer yet.

I blame my dad for passing on a particular quirky gene onto me – playing jokes on people. I take great pleasure in scheming, hatching and collaborating with other jokers and like Frodo in the Lord of the Rings I am on a quest – to find the perfect joke.

The joke gene lay dormant until I was about eight or so and then it unleashed itself on my poor grandmother who was first to fall victim to my antics.

At first I was a green joker, I had no imagination so fell back on the standard cliché pranks like pretending that I had fallen over and broken my arm or leg. My jokes soon evolved however and I became a little more creative.

The Grandmother Caper

I often used to hang my mammoth grandmother’s bras and underwear around the house, over lamps and televisions and chairs. For some reason I used to find this hysterically funny. Another frequent event involved me stealing one of her slippers and popping it in the freezer for a couple of hours and then placing it neatly back next to the other one. I knew she had put them on when I heard her screams resonate through the walls. In a later prank I dressed up like an adult, went out the back door and knocked on the front door pretending I was a stranger. She has no idea it was me because I looked completely different, my efforts to disguise myself paid off. I was pretending to be some psycho-disturbed person who couldn’t speak properly and she was so shocked when I revealed my true identify that it took her a while to believe it was me!

My favourite time of the year was the Melbourne show. My pranks would hitch up a notch when I would come home with my supply of joke show bags and pour out their contents over my bed whilst hatching my grand plans of comic proportions. Of course the jokes would not be contained to just my grandmother; her friends would often be my targets. In a particularly commando mood one day, I crawled on my belly into the lounge room when my grandmother had her friends over and wriggled my way around the pot plants and tables until I reached my destination – under the couch where I had cleverly planted a whoopee cushion under the seat. I patiently waited like a sniper stalking his target. The plan was executed perfectly when my grandmother’s friend sat on the couch to a resulting idiotic farting noise that sent me into fits of laughter.

The ‘cotton ball on my grandmother’s head’ game was another source of amusement for me. I would sneak up behind my grandmother while she was watching television. Carefully and slowly, I would place a cotton ball on her head one at a time to see how many I could get away with before she would jump out of the chair in such a fright thinking spiders were crawling around in her head. I think my highest score was 9.

Clearly I had no boundaries; I was a rebel on a sure path to destruction and mayhem. No one could stop me now.

I once put a giant rubber black spider on top of my mum’s pillow. I waited patiently in my room until I heard her shrills and shrieks. Mum didn’t think this was funny at all; she scolded me for ‘nearly’ giving her a heart attack. This reaction instead of deterring me inspired me to seek greater challenges – I obviously had talent and was well on way to becoming a great joker. I began to compare myself to Houdini; Houdini was the best magical illusionist, could I be his equivalent in the world of jokes?

The letter

My step sister Eff shared my passion for being a prankster, her talent although not as refined as mine showed great promise. The best pranks were born during the school holiday season when we were bored and looking for ways to amuse ourselves. Eff went out to check the mail on one particularly opportune day and retrieved a letter addressed to her mum from her godchild. She was about to hand it over when evil genius struck.

Eff’s eyes widened with excitement as I explained my plan, I knew that I was maturing as a prankster but this far exceeded my expectations. Eff and I were going to rewrite the letter and reseal it back in the original envelope – a bombshell was going to be dropped in a few hours time…..

With a fresh piece of paper we rewrote the letter copying the same original opening paragraph before we changed it. The letter was in Greek and it was fortunate that Efi’s Greek writing skills were just good enough to pull this off.

Satisfied with the outcome we put the original letter to one side, resealed the envelope with the new letter and left it on the kitchen table along with the other mail – pure genius. Things couldn’t have worked out better; the letter wasn’t opened until my dad came back from work. Eff and I were in the kitchen watching television when Vicki and my dad sat down to have their coffee and to read the mail.   We knew instantly we couldn’t hold a poker face to actually watch this unfold in person so we casually made our way into the lounge room within ear shot of the kitchen.

“Oh, how exciting, a letter from my god child!”

“Well open it,” says my dad.

Vicki starts reading; her enthusiasm is still strong during the first few opening sentences, then the silence….

“Oh dear, Oh dear,” followed by a tck tck of the mouth.

“Well, what is it then?” my dad asks.

Vicki is unable to speak at first but then manages.“Mary has fallen pregnant, and um the father is on drugs and sounds like a real awful person, he doesn’t want her to keep the child. Mary is too scared to tell her parents and she wants to drop out school and come live here in Australia. George, she wants to come and stay with us to have the baby……….. more silence followed by “What are we going to do George?”

Meanwhile, Eff and I trying our best to muffle the sounds of our laughter. We nearly lose it when we hear Vicky say, “the poor girl, she must be so upset she has made quite a few spelling mistakes in her letter, she can’t even write anymore George.”

“Well, we have to help the girl,” my dad says “but how can we do that and not tell her parents?”

Two hours later and still debating about what to do, Eff and I decide its time to let the folks off the hook, fess up and show them the real letter.

They are angry at us, no denying that but ultimately relieved. I find that the prank victim’s relief is a useful emotion because it always overrides the anger in the end and thus I am always forgiven.

The Gameshow

20 years have passed since ‘the letter’ and during this time many jokes have been played on people, but I am particularly fond of one I played on Eff a few years ago.  My partner Julian and I hatched this one, I will let the email below speak for itself…. and yes she did fall for this!

From: Channel Seven [mailto:channelseven@gmail.com
Sent: Monday, 6 September 2004 2:11 PM
To: Tsaparengas, Efi
Subject: Channel Seven Game Show Selection

Dear Ms Tsaparengas

You have been selected to play on a new exciting Channel Seven game
show filmed in Melbourne Victoria called ‘Greek Girls Hit 30′.
‘Greek Girls Hit 30′ consists of 4 contestants, all of whom have to
press buzzers in order to answer questions about dating after the age
of 30 in the Australian Greek dating world.

If you would like more information on this once in a lifetime
opportunity to appear on an all new gameshow please send an email to
channelseven@gmail.com with the following:
- What type of man are you looking for (one sentence)
- Evening Telephone number

One of our representatives will then call you within 24 hours of
receiving your email.

The first episode will take place on 14/11/2004, Channel Seven, at
10:30am in three months from now.

Please note that this is a first come, first served basis so please
email us now before all vacancies are taken.

If you have any further questions please contact channelseven@gmail.com

Regards

Jane Bowral Carter

Manager Scheduling
Channel Seven Selection Group

I let the poor girl think she had been selected for this game show for the entire day; Eff had forwarded the email to me and asked if I had heard about this show. Of course I had heard of the show and I did what all good friends would do, I encouraged her to reply to the email convincing her that the show would be a blast.

As evil as I am, the one rule I have is that I can’t let the prank go on for more than a day so I broke the news later to her that night over the phone.

You know you have executed a joke perfectly by the reaction you get when you tell your victim its gold, it’s priceless and I think that is why I love pranking people so much.

I know what you are all thinking, can I take a joke? The answer to that one is certainly yes but of course you have to impress me as well, and that my friends will be the challenge!

The evening of Friday 15 August was an absurdly funny one.    The occasion – dinner at mum’s to celebrate her partner Peter’s name day.

According to the Greek Orthodox tradition when someone is named after a saint or martyr that day becomes their “name day”.  This happens on most days and is celebrated with a feast fit for a King………. and the entire King’s army………and the King’s enemies and the enemy’s army.

My curious nature led me to this ask the question.  What the blazes is a ‘name day’ ? For that matter what does MY name day mean –St Katherine’s Day.

History tells us that Katherine of Alexandria, a smart and beautiful women (and no, I am not making this up) declared to her parents that she would only marry someone who surpassed her in everything, such that “His beauty was more radiant than the shining of the sun, His wisdom governed all creation, His riches were spread throughout all the world.”

Katherine was obviously a smart lady when it came to the dating world.  She wanted the best of everything – looks, wealth and intelligence.  Being named after Katherine isn’t so bad so far…. But then a horrible twist…..
Katherine visited her contemporary Roman Emperor Maxentius who was a persecutor of Christians to try and convince him of the error of his ways.  The Emperor didn’t take to kindly to Katherine’s convictions so he ordered her imprisonment and she was ultimately condemned to death on the breaking wheel – an instrument of torture.

So let me get this right, I am named after a woman who was tortured on some sort of giant wheel by a maniacal roman emperor who had a problem with smart women and the Greeks decided this was worth celebrating?  And I thought the Emperor was crazy!………. well now that I am satisfied with the outcome of my name day research let me get back on track regarding the absurd evening.

I was reluctant to go to this name day dinner.  Mum had been experiencing some computer problems that she wanted my partner Julian to look at so we thought we would pop in just to say hello, fix the computer and do a quick exit stage left.

I should have known it wasn’t going to be that easy.  We turned up at mum’s to be greeted by a group of her  friends that I didn’t know.  If you have read my other blog, The baby down pour, you would know how I feel about attending ‘rituals’ such as weddings, christening and baby showers.

Just to bring some complexity into the evening, Julian is on an elimination diet due to a suspected food allergy.  This means he is on a very strict diet which allows for no deviation. It’s bad enough when you are on a diet and going to a function but when that function is Greek it’s unacceptable – it will be talked about for many years.  You are forever a leper in the eyes of the Greeks.

When I saw that mum had put on an extravagant spread on I knew there was no quick exit to be had.  I took mum aside and explained that Julian couldn’t eat anything.  ‘What about ‘salad, I have prepared a nice salad just for Julian, its got rocket, parsley and lettuce’, she asked. ‘No’ mum, Julian can’t have rocket.’ ‘What about tuna?’  ‘No mum, no tuna!’

This was going to be awkward.

I am convinced mum has some sort of obsessive compulsive question disorder as she asked me if I wanted something from every dish, ‘’would you like some olive bread?  Or how about a slice of split-vienna?’  I eyed the 20 varieties of bread in disbelief; no doubt my mother had covered all bases.

One of my mum’s friends offered me some wine – lambrusco from a casket, hmmm how charming.  I declined politely even though I was tempted to explain about the abomination of lambrusco.

The barbeque was working at full capacity, every type of animal and its organs were on offer,  fish, pork, shrimp, beef, liver, Cypriot sausage. I refer to the Greek BBQ as cancer on a stick – the meat isn’t ready until it’s black.  I read somewhere that the Greek diet is one of the healthiest, whoever said this were obviously vegetarian.

My mum continued firing off “would you like questions”- ‘would you like some feta? It’s been marinated with oregano and olive oil, what about some grass?’  Now let me explain for all of you non-Greek folk. I am referring to leafy green boiled vegetables (not of the illegal type).  They are quite bitter and often served with lemon juice and olive oil.

Poor Julian, I could see him out of the corner of my eye, drooling over my Cypriot sausage and marinated feta.  Then, more “would you like questions continue” – ‘How about I prepare Julian an iceberg lettuce salad?  Just lettuce, he can eat lettuce cant he?’ Then the explosion from me, ‘mum, Julian will EAT AT HOME, and stop asking me if I want this and that, I can see what is on the table, I can SEE and if I want something I will just help myself!’

The guests fell silent, unusual for Greeks but I knew I had gone too far.  A few glasses of lambrusco down the hatch might not be such a bad idea right now; instead I stuff a big chunk of Cypriot sausage in my mouth.

Slowly I devoured my plate of Greek-all sorts.  There is magic at work at a Greek feast, your plate is never empty, somehow it always refills itself.  It’s a miracle. ‘Come on eat, you’re too skinny’, exclaimed one of the guests, ‘you are a growing girl you need to eat’.  Um hello, I am a 5 7” 35 year old women, I am not sure which direction he thinks I need to grow.

By this time Julian is so hungry he’s monosyllabic.  A childhood memory pops into my head unexpectedly. When I was a child and I used to get bored visiting family friends, I would kick my mum under the table to hint that I wanted to leave without attracting attention.  I thought it was a clever and subtle tactic but I was wrong.  Everyone knew I was kicking my mum under the table.  Julian gave me a look that was equivalent to a kick from under the table but no one saw it expect for the ginger cat from next door that had come to scope out any leftovers.  Judging by the size of Mr Ginger’s waistline, he quite enjoyed his visits here and I suspected Mr Ginger would never kick anyone under the table.

On the way home as I carefully balanced a big plate full of food on my knees, I reflected upon the evening.  Are Greeks really celebrating a name day or is just an excuse to eat more food and drink bad wine.

The first of the families had arrived at the settlement camp 10 days ago, the young girl had been exploring the unfamiliar terrain and unusual rock formations, noticing the strange dull brown dirt and the green hues of sparse low lying plant life.  What an odd planet.  She had spied a small cave a few days ago and was reluctant to investigate it but like all young children eventually the temptation of the unknown grew too strong and she could no longer resist.  Scientists from her home planet had established that there was no life here other than ground cover plants that the advanced missions had seeded, and certainly no alien life. The popular media had called it the dead planet with good reason.  The girl slowly walked into the cave, confident that no cyclops alien monster would appear.

It took a while for her eyes to adjust to the dark, it smelt dry and dusty not at all like the caves back on her home planet which smelt damp. She looked at the walls and wondered how they formed; she guessed the scientists would soon undertake geological research to find out more about the rock formations. Disappointed, but not surprised at discovering nothing, the girl imagined herself stumbling upon some green slimy alien creature and how famous she would be, the girl who found alien life on the dead planet.  But after seeing nothing that moved, she decided it was time to head back to camp when a smooth part of wall caught her attention. Standing out amongst the rest of the uneven surface there was a faint outline of some kind of shape.  The girl traced the outline of the shape with her finger – it was almost a triangle. Knowing what her mother would say if she came home covered in dirt she used the bottom corner of her jacket to wipe away the dust revealing some kind of symbols inside the triangle.  Was this the green alien or at least the home of the green alien she had hoped she might find?

Over the last 10 years the young girl had had watched her planet die, the last of the fossil fuels had been used, world-wide war, mass carnage, extinction of animal and plant species.  The breakdown of the society was so rapid that it was hard to believe that billions of years of evolution could be undone in decades.

There had been warnings of a planetary energy crisis but no one had listened, alternative energy including nuclear fusion, solar power and hot air travel were all considered but by the time people actually realized that the colour of their couch was not a priority it was too late for any action.

100 years ago scientists had researched a planet over 50 million miles away that if seeded with plant life and given an atmosphere, life would survive and maybe in time even flourish.  Teraforming had been surprisingly easy, the planet had responded well to all efforts to make it livable, a process further hastened by the concerted efforts of a very frightened population.

The young girl’s family had joined the first migration group comprised of mainly scientists, researchers and those with enough money to pay for an early escape.   Once the families had settled and infrastructures were in place the plan was to transfer more and more people to the new planet before their home became superheated and unlivable.

Following the girls discovery in the cave, researchers and historians came in large numbers to study the mysterious symbol that the young girl had discovered. It seemed to all that the dead planet hadn’t always been dead, at some point creatures with bodies, languages, symbols and lives much like their own had existed here long ago. They too had damaged their planet, and been forced to leave to survive. They had called this planet Earth and had fled for the girl’s home planet, a place called Mars, now their ancestors had returned home without realising it was home. How many times had they destroyed their home planet, left for another, and then returned many millennia later and made this discovery? Once? Twice, or always?

As a child I remember we always had a container of neapolitan ice-cream in the freezer.  There was always a thin strip of chocolate on one side, a thin strip of strawberry on the other and the thickest strip in the middle – vanilla.

The vanilla ice-cream was always left behind – a lump in the middle looking so very pathetic and isolated I remember making a pact with my friends, let’s never become like adults; adults are boring they always like vanilla ice-cream….

It’s true, one moment adults are wearing bell bottom jeans the next minute they are wearing beige or if you want to pretend beige is an interesting colour you may refer to it as ‘ecru’.

As I grew older I forgot about my childhood pact and my taste buds grew accustomed to the taste of vanilla.  I was introduced to the Greek vanilla spoon dessert – a small nugget of sweet dense vanilla eaten while being dunked in water translated in English this dessert is called the ‘submarine’.

Vanilla is uninspiring and safe, you know this as a child but as you grow your life becomes submerged just like the Greek vanilla dessert- the ‘submarine’.

The source of all things vanilla – Eros versus Thanatos

Psychology can provide a useful insight into the source of a vanilla life.

In Freudian psychology, humans are pulled by two opposing forces. Eros, the Greek God of love, who represents energy, richness and the desire to create life.  Eros drives our goals, creativity and challenges our boundaries.  In corner two we have Thanatos the Greek God of death who is the founder of negativity, resistance and all things vanilla. Eros battles against the destructive forces of Thanatos, and Thanatos battles against the creativity and energy of Eros.

As children we embrace our inner Eros and can’t see or feel the destructive forces of Thanatos. But as we get older Thanatos takes a greater hold on our lives and we stop making progress and cease embracing challenge.  Somehow, slowly, ever so slowly while we weren’t looking we become more and more conservative.  Why?

We learn from a young age that boundaries exist – the older we get the more boundaries there seem to be. You can’t do this, you can’t do that, and you certainly can’t do the other. Do we increasingly define our lives by boundaries?

Perhaps we are too busy worrying about our weaknesses and failings rather than focusing on developing our strengths?

Maybe we just feel content and safe within our vanilla boundaries – why risk failure or damaging our mature and secure sense of selves by challenging ourselves?

Let’s explore the vanilla concept with an example.

A well known middle aged runner ‘Victoralias’ intends to run sustained 3 minute kms.  (10 kilometers in half an hour) Over a year ago Victoralias posted a thread titled how long to run sustained 3 minute km on a popular running Australian forum which caused a scandal.

Take the following comments for example:

“I think Victoralias is doing great, and I wish I had his ability.  But if I had his ability I would be satisfied in my personal improvements, and would not feel the need to state outlandish goals to all and sundry. Humility generates respect.”

And this:

“I wish him well but reality and his performances tells me that he is setting himself up for failure….  I also think that people can be over supportive and are contributing to his sense of under-performing, when realistically he is actually doing well for a 40+ year of limited distance running”

“I just hope he is not one of these people who never really achieves anything because he always sets unrealistic goals.”

Notice how some people tend to pad out their negativity with insincere well-meaning comments but you can easily read between the lines.

Then we move onto the more aggressive comments:

“ if you can’t ‘bring it……then ‘sit-down shut-up and get back in your box’.”

Comments like this suggest that:

1. people get angry when they hear about goals that they perceive to be unrealistic or overly aspirational- they consider it a sign of arrogance (or commonly known in some countries as Tall Poppy Syndrome)
2. people  generally don’t like the idea of others achieving something exceptional
3. people should be satisfied with their personal achievements when they reach a certain level that is perceived to be ‘acceptable’.

By now you might be asking what this has to do with a vanilla life, neapolitan ice-cream and beige -or ‘ecru’.  Well here is my theory.

These comments represent the barriers and negative forces that you would expect from your old friend Thanatos – they impose and perpetuate self limiting thoughts.  Boundaries are described by using words like ‘unrealistic goals’ or ‘failure’.  Remember it’s safe to stay within our limits – you can’t possibly do this can you? – Why do we always like to tell people they can’t do things!    It’s almost always the first thing we think about isn’t it?

I am not suggesting for one moment that we should all set truly unrealistic goals like teaching a dog how to speak Russian, French and German and certainly don’t believe that the answer lies within the absurdity of ‘The Secret’.

We should not kill someone else’s spirit or passion just because we think it’s not technically within the ‘vanilla’ mind set.   So what if people are over-inspirational.  Where would we be today if it wasn’t for people that pushed the boundaries?  Isn’t it those boundary pushing beliefs that make successful people get out of bed each morning?

Should we stop exploring or challenging ourselves with the near impossible?  What would happen if we didn’t push ourselves?  Should we become boring and predictable and go with the mindset that ‘humility generates respect’?    Or should we respectfully challenge the status quo instead?

Here is the vanilla test – how do you score?

1. When you go to a restaurant do you tend to eat what you have previously eaten?
2. Would you be prepared to appear in public dressed as the opposite sex?
3. Would you give up your hobbies, passions or goals when you get married?
4. Are you suspicious of people from other races, cultures or sexual preferences?
5. When was the last time you challenged yourself or did something that terrified you?
6. Who is the better film maker Steven Spielberg or Stanley Kubrick?
7. Don’t read any further if you do not know who Stanley Kubrick is.
8. Would you rather be an unacknowledged genius (Van Gough) or rich and famous talentless celebrity? (Paris Hilton).
9. Would you prefer to live in a 1930s Art Deco house or a modern housing estate?
10. Who do you prefer Superman or Batman?
11. Do you have a standard panoramic photograph of a waterfall, landscape, seascape or cityscape on your wall?
12. Please please stop reading now if you have one of these panoramic photographs with a cliché phrase under it.
13. Who killed JFK- the CIA, Lee Harvey Oswald or aliens for the planet Zerkton?

Fresh from Africa and thirsty for more travel, we took our next opportunity to travel during the Easter break – destination Thailand.  Julian booked some cheap airfares with Jetstar and Brunei Airways including stopovers in Brisbane then Brunei and the same on the return trip home. Sounded like a good plan at the time.

Julian always plans our holidays, he thrives on organising and scheduling so you can imagine my surprise when we turned up at the wrong airport….

Our Jetstar flight was due to leave Melbourne at 9.30pm so off we drove to Melbourne airport with passports, tickets, luggage and that all important excited holiday feeling.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing; all the signs were there now that I look back:

• sign number one – empty bus from long term parking to terminal
• sign number two – empty terminal

A Jetstar employee approached us at the terminal and asked where we were going.  Thailand idiot, where do you think we are going? I thought to myself.  Instead I responded, ‘Melbourne to Brisbane, are we the only ones travelling?’  ‘Um’, replied Jetstar Matt, ‘your plane is actually leaving from Avalon airport in Geelong.  But it’s OK; you are not the first ones to do this, oh and by the way you won’t make your flight, it’s too late.’

Jetstar Matt’s was clearly joking.  I was looking around for Ashton Kutcher and hidden cameras.  Unfortunately there was no one around to say Punkd, or Smile you’re on candid camera. Instead Jetstar Matt checked our tickets as though that would help the situation.  Julian and I were stunned silent and couldn’t really think straight.  We toyed with the idea of trying to rush out to Avalon airport but then figured there was probably no point.  I wasn’t too keen on being one of those late people running like crazy to catch a flight.

There was nothing we could do so instead of being one of those late crazy people running to catch a flight we were now one of those stupid people that went to the wrong airports and missed their flight. I tried not to take it out on Julian but it wasn’t long before I exploded ‘how could you not check the tickets!’ Blah blah blah, rah rah rah yada yada yada and on I went all the way home.

The thing about Julian is that he never gives up and will always find a solution.   He decided to forge on with the holiday and booked a different flight directly to Bangkok the very next day…..   Problem solved $700 later.  Little did we know that our travel dramas did not end there.

We had 8 days to spend in Thailand and we made the most of it visiting Chiang Mai followed by a few days in Bangkok.

If you asked what I most enjoyed about Thailand I would have to say the coconut ice cream.  I took every opportunity to eat this divine food and the best place to indulge in this was a colourful and charming little restaurant in Bangkok called Harmonique.  The coconut ice cream served with fresh mango was so popular that we had to order it at the start of our meal and put it on hold until dessert.

A taxi driver offered his daily services to us in Chiang Mai, for two days we drove around and explored the city.  It wasn’t long before we realized that our taxi driver received bonus payments for taking us to certain places but we didn’t really care after all everyone has to make a living.  The only thing we didn’t enjoy was the carpet shops and the monkey training school.

By the time I walked into my second carpet shop I knew how the routine was going to go.  A sleazy suited up young guy with shiny black shoes was going to greet me at the door with a cold drink and an offer to take me on Persian treasure tour beyond my wildest dreams.  It would start with silk fabrics and bedspreads, antique ornaments and finally the piece de resistance the magic carpet.   Let me say I am not particularly taken with the idea of spending thousands of dollars on a Persian carpet no matter how much of a fine piece of artistry it is.  Mr Shiny Shoes went to painstaking extremes to sell his carpets, he swirled them in the air and spun them around on the floor so you could see the brilliant colours in different light. Finally he would send the carpet skidding across the wooden floor boards so it would land dramatically assuming this would seal the deal.  The best I could offer was ‘wow your carpets really do look like flying carpets’ or ‘you certainly don’t get this experience at Carpet Court back in Australia.’

Frustrated in not making a sale, he asked, ‘we have many many beautiful things here, is there not something beautiful you would like?’  ‘No’, I replied, ‘I have already bought many beautiful things today.’  ‘What beautiful things have you bought today?’ was his next question.  ‘Well’, I replied ‘I bought um some paintings, yes paintings and some jewellery.’  This wasn’t a total lie – I had bought a bracelet from a market stall for $2.00.

The monkey training school was far worse than the Persian carpet experience.  I had a bad feeling before we entered the place.  I was confronted by couple of glum looking Colobus monkeys staring out of their tiny little prison.

Inside there were about 20 monkeys individual tied up to one little metal stand each unable to move from their concrete floor.  Their only form of play- running around and around their metal pole.  The cheesy music blared out from the speakers indicating a monkey show was about to start.  The entire crowd howled with laughter as the little monkeys were made to do ridiculous and demeaning tricks. I watched the crowd in horror – could they not see that this was clearly violating animal rights?  I was so upset and left a couple of minutes into the show.

Another tourist saw me upset and mentioned the sign stating that the monkeys are taken away every day at 5pm to an open area.  ‘Are you a moron?’ I screamed at him.  Do you believe that every day at 5pm someone comes to take the monkeys away?  And even if they do are we supposed to feel better about what we are seeing here!’

I had been keen to visit the Elephant Nature Foundation but our driver took us to the Elephant camp instead.  I muttered and I mumbled as I watched the elephants painting pictures and spouting water through their trunks.  I apologized to my little elephant friend as I fed him some bananas and cane sugar.

My final animal experience was not a bad one and a much debated one from what I have read – the Tiger Temple in Kanchanburi.  I did not find the temple as bad as what I had expected; it’s hard to explain why, perhaps it was for purely selfish reasons, because patting a tiger was something I always wanted.  I can tell you this much, the environment may be not perfect but it’s a work in progress and the tigers are well looked after.

I wasn’t interested in standing in a line for an hour only to spend a minute patting a tiger so I insisted on getting their early to see if we would have any chance of having some real interaction with them.  This approach worked.  We arrived at 11.30am a couple of hours before the tiger show started.  Five or six young tigers were bought out of the cages to socialize and I was lucky to spend an hour patting and bottle feeding the younger cubs with a handful of other tourists.  I was amazed to see the tigers behaving like my dog, rolling over on their backs demanding a tummy rub.  What can I say about giving a tiger a tummy rub?  It’s much the same as patting a dog except a tiger has sharper claws and larger teeth!

What’s a visit to Thailand without a cooking course?
We put our culinary skills to the test at Smart Cook Thai Cookery School in Chiang Mai. The secret to a good red curry is measured by how sore you arms are.  The more your arms ache after constantly pounding chilies, the better your curry will be. Mac our host was the highlight of the course, not only did she manage to teach us how to make a mean spring roll but she also spiced up our meals with her enthusiasm and sense of humour.

If you recall the beginning of my story I mentioned our travel dramas had not ended.  Our time in Thailand was about to come to an end or so we thought.  We arrived at Bangkok airport with our passports, tickets, luggage and that all important I don’t want to go home feeling.  At least we had a night in Brunei to look forward to. However this was not the case according to the Brunei airways. The airline had cancelled our ticket because we had not checked in on the way to Bangkok so they assumed we were not going to fly return.  Since when did Brunei airways have an ‘assumption’ policy in place?

The upshot – no ticket and no way of getting home.

Julian came to the rescue and excitedly announced that we could spend another night and day in Bangkok and catch a direct flight home tomorrow night…..  Problem solved $700 later.

We decided to make the most of this misfortune and spent our last night at the Royal Orchid Sheraton and the next day Chatuchak market.

I am not really a huge fan of shopping these days but I enjoyed Chatuchak market.  I had to buy a cheap hat and fan and a huge bottle of water in the first 10 minutes but after a while the intense humidity must have triggered some shopping neurons because I was shopping and bargaining with the best of them.  Four hours later I had a big grin on my face when I calculated that I had bought an entire wardrobe for no more than $100.00.

And do you think the run of bad luck ended when we arrived back home?  No of course it didn’t because things happen in threes don’t they?  My luggage arrived but Julian’s didn’t and where were the keys to the car I ask?  Not in Julian’s hand luggage where they should have been, they were in his check in luggage.  The rest of the story involves swearing, phone calls and taxis but things turned out in the end.  The bag was found and arrived 2 days later.

Julian and I both agree that things don’t usually go wrong for us when we travel; we figured it was just our turn this time.

We have already planned our next end of year holiday -South America and even if something does go wrong I am sure Julian will find a solution as always.

You are at work and the phone rings, you pick up the receiver and a business associate says. Hi, how are you?’ and you respond ‘fine thanks, and you?’ Everyone involved in this duplicitous dialogue knows that the health enquiry was disingenuous and so was your response. So why do we do this day in and day out?

Let’s turn to history.

Perhaps in the past death was so common that your friend or neighbour was alive one day, feeling unwell the next and very dead the day after that, perhaps killed by the plague or by a pork chop gone bad.

Or maybe we can blame our pastoral ancestors. Our ancient villages and small towns were home to small populations, where closer community relationships were necessary to perform the most basic tasks like drawing water from the well. We cared because we needed to.

Perhaps, though, it’s something darker, much darker. Maybe we never really cared whether Joe our neighbor was dying of the black plague, perhaps we didn’t care that Edgar the boy next door didn’t quite make it to the farm yesterday, maybe it was a sham then, a sham now and always will be a sham.

Now before you leap to any conclusions about me simply being heartless, or not caring about anyone else, I want you to think about your last conversation with a work colleague, or shop assistant. How did it begin? That’s right, you did the old “How are you?” routine and guess what, you couldn’t have cared if they were sick, dying, tired or having a bad day in fact you wouldn’t have even heard the response if they were.

But to get back on track, let’s turn to science for a more modern answer.

Maybe our brains are so slow that we are incapable of actually putting an idea into words without warming up our mouths and voice boxes?

Alternatively we may think that our interaction will go better if we can fool the other person into believing we care about their welfare – of course it’s quite likely they are thinking the same thing.

A more plausible theory might be that like dogs, when humans meet or interact an assessment must be made as to how friendly the other person is. In person this can be assessed quite quickly through smiles and handshakes or in the case of dogs a quick butt sniff. The more cues we have to the friendliness of the person, the quicker this preliminary sniff can be.

We would expect that over the phone where no visual cues are present that it might take longer to make an assessment, usually via a few hollow words of concern – a more protracted telephonic butt sniff.

I decided to do a little test.

Kelly the receptionist from the dental clinic called to confirm my dental appointment. ‘Hi Katherine, this is Kelly from Dr Rouad’s office, how are you today?’ she asked. ‘Well Kelly, funny that you ask’, came the response, ‘I had to wake up quite earlier than usual for a morning meeting so I got dressed in the dark, when I got to work I realized that I was wearing one brown boot and one black boot. This sets the scene for the day, so things got much worse from here and I couldn’t meet an important deadline and now I feel like crap. It’s just been one of those days. Ah I feel so much better now that I have gotten that off my chest Kelly!’ The silence on the other end indicated that Kelly thought I required a psychiatric appointment instead of a dental check.

My point here is that answering honestly to this question can also run the risk of making people uncomfortable. Does the person asking the question really care that you are feeling like crap? Not a chance.

No one on that phone (unless they are your mother) actually cares if you have the flu, are wearing a black boot and a brown boot or dying of botulism. By some mystery of evolution, history or cultural legacy we have become masters of the lie.

It’s either lie, and say you care when you really don’t, or tell the truth and offend. Your choice.