Saturday 30 August 2014

I'm convinced I have two brains


... perhaps I should elaborate. I'm convinced that I have two brains, or at least two separately functioning parts of my conscious brain, only one of which is under my control.  The larger, consciously-controlled brain - for the sake of the argument let's assume there are two - is a polite (mostly), intelligent (arguably), caring thoughtful sort of brain that knows about things like professional demeanour, and logical thought, and verbal restraint. And then there's the other one. The one that's funny but more often than not gets me into trouble with things like shlong-handled squeegees and snails (more about that later). 

As my last post probably more than illustrated, I'm somewhat prone to those moments. You know... those moments. The ones where my mouth wrenches itself free of any remaining vestiges of neural control and just freewheels to the point when my own eyes, in desperate defiance of anatomy and, indeed, the basic premises of both time and space, point themselves down through my nostrils to stare directly at my mouth and go "what the fuck are you DOING, dude?!"  THOSE moments.

I had one yesterday.

Took my cat to the vet, regular checkup, nothing out of the ordinary. Vet waiting room setup is fairly standard - semi-circular desk immediately opposite door, plastic chairs lining front wall and right hand side, pet food and kittens for adoption on the far left. I'm sat at the far right corner, facing the desk and door. I've been there awhile and since daytime TV is boring as shite I'm amusing myself by idly people watching. To my left is a young guy with a puppy and we start sporadically chatting. People are coming in carrying crates with cats and rabbits and suchlike, or leading dogs on strings. There's not much conversation. Pretty much what you'd expect from a vet's waiting room. 

I'd been there maybe an hour when the door opened and in stepped a woman with her left arm extended out behind her. I'm sure I heard everyone in the room think "dog that doesn't wanna come in". It's what you'd expect, after all.

She takes a couple more steps in and we see that rather than a pet she's leading (dragging, really) a reluctant and recalcitrant toddler. 

Now, in my defence, my good brain immediately thought "oh she's obviously picking up a pet, or maybe buying medications, or pet food, or shampoo, or just booking an animal for surgery, or maybe she wants to adopt a cat..." 

Somewhat unfortunately perhaps, while my good brain was busily thinking this, the bad brain was clearly off picking flowers and admiring the pretty scenery and it must have loosened its grip on the reins of my mouth, because I was suddenly aware of an all-too-familiar voice saying quite audibly to the waiting hush of the entire room:

"Surely a paediatrician would have been more appropriate?"

Cue 2 agonising seconds of slightly stunned silence then uproarious laughter while the mother looks around to see who'd said it. I'm sure that even if everyone else in the room weren't looking directly at me, the radioactive glow of my ears and face would have given her a clue. I was hoping the vet nurse would distract her but she was no help at all, she went poker-faced and escaped out into the back office. Didn't help because I could still hear her snorting with stifled giggles.

Whatever gods may be were (belatedly) smiling on me though because the lady clearly had a sense of humour and laughed along with everyone, although I'll be honest I totally expected to go outside to the car park and find my tyres let down and her waiting with a Tickle-Me-Elmo baseball bat and a snarl.

It's so disheartening because the larger of my brains really DOES try but that other one? *sigh* ... political correctness really is just a random collection of syllables...

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