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March
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6 comments:
1. Never wear a brown hat with a blue suit.
2. Don't forget to floss every day. Brush every morning and every night. Don't mix grape and grain. Don't try to use a fork to eat olives. Never bet on a gray horse.
3. Always remember your parents' birthday. It isn't the gift that counts but the thought. It is better to give than to receive. I before E, except after C, or when sounded like A, as in Neighbor or Weigh. (But what about Seize?)
4. Never wear a bow tie with a button-down collar. Why not? Because! Because you don't, that's why. Because I say so! Would I tell you something that isn't true? Think of what I've done for you, of the sacrifices we've made for you. And what do we ask in return? What? Nothing at all, except that you take full advantage! We want what's best for you. And that you don't open up a mouth! A fresh-mouthed kid who always thinks he knows it all...
5. Change your underwear every day, and never wear underwear with holes in it. You'll be ashamed in the emergency room, where they'll take you after you've been run over by a bus, when they see what a slob you are.
6. It follows from the foregoing that if you wear clean underwear without holes, you will not be run over by a bus-which is OK. In the same way it happened with those sentences when you were properly prepared and were ready to translate and you were never called on. Think about it.
7. Listen, these things are telling you something that's true! In a world as confusing as ours, that's a claim that carries a lot of majesty-and also arouses a lot of suspicions. Or if it doesn't, it ought to. It does in me, anyway. Truth? What is that? Immediately I see Jehovah's Witnesses standing on my porch with their pathetic hats with plastic cherries on the brim and their smiles of goodwill. And fat! Aren't there any thin Jehovah's Witnesses? Are they trying to make up in weight what they lack in numbers? I'm as cynical as the next fellow, maybe even more so-especially if the next fellow is a Jehovah's Witness. I think truth is mostly to be found in labeling. This product contains no sodium! You can believe in that, can't you? And in instructions. Who can argue with a numbered paragraph that demands of you nothing more than that you insert Tab A into slot B and glue?
8. Ignore this sentence.
9. What an absurd, what a perfectly useless piece of instruction! I'm being the smart-ass author, screwing around and playing games. But you are wise to me already, aren't you? It's not as if you could have prepared yourself in any way. Those three words ganged up on you, and by the time you had taken them in, they'd taken you in, announcing that you had wasted your time, that you'd been had. It isn't as if I had written, "Skip the next paragraph."
10. "Skip the next paragraph." (You saw that coming, didn't you?)
11. OK, OK. But now what's your excuse? Or what's mine? For you to begin to resent this or, just as dangerous for this fragile relationship of ours, you begin to tire of it. You are starting to think of dropping the entire thing, turning the page, or putting away this book for a more promising one. You come to these encounters expecting to be charmed. And you're entitled. After all, it's your time, your money, your life. You can invite whomever you like. Or disinvite. There's no particular need to persist in this. You've had fair warning, after all, and whom else can you blame if you persist in this foolish course.? You knew what you were getting into, didn't you, but you just wouldn't listen. You were never an easy person to talk to, never an easy person to advise, even when you knew we had your best interests at heart. You are not following instructions. Or using time and materials well. You call yourself a divergent thinker, but what does that mean, what does that amount to, Mr. High and Mighty, except classroom clown? Or pest? Who are you to give yourself such airs?
12. Don't give yourself airs. Take it from me, you'll be doing yourself an infinite amount of harm. What kind of life do you think you can expect for yourself? Your parents were right, after all. As parents usually are, even though children never understand this. Your parents meant well and children never understand this. Your parents meant well and learned a thing or two in their time. And what did they do to you that was so terrible? They did what they did, perhaps repressing the blossoming of your best and truest self, but they quite honestly believed what they said-or shouted-when they told you how they were "doing this for your own good, and the day will come, mark my words, when you'll thank me."
13. Ignore the previous paragraph.
14. Be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. Be prepared.
15. Forget step 13.
16. Skip it. I did. I learned over the years how to listen and not listen, how to turn off the actual meaning and attend only to the rise and fall of inflections, as if the yelling were in some other language. The rise and fall of the voice, the rhetorical tropes and operatic turns that were expressive not only of anger but also of an irrelevant aesthetic predilection for balance and shapeliness. The parallelisms, the setups and payoffs, the antiphonal arrangements of rhetorical questions and emotive answers. These waves of language would break over my head, pounding at me like the surf of a storm-lashed sea.
17. Don't laugh. It's ruinous to laugh, even to smile, even when they get off a terrific line, something new that you haven't heard before, some razzle-dazzle bit of business that has just revealed itself to one of them. Or even inspired nonsense like "I'll forget about it, and you'll forget about it, but I'll remember, and don't you forget it..." Under no circumstances should you smile. Wipe that smile off your face. Who do you think you are, anyway? Who died and left you king? Who needs you? Who sent you to torment me? What have I done to deserve such a punishment? One day you will have children, and they will eat your heart out, and it will serve you right. What do we ask of you? What demands do we make? Only that you live up to your potential! That you try a little harder, that you do what you ought to do and use the brains that God gave you. It isn't as if you were stupid. You're smart. Too smart for your own good. A smart mouth on you, and no sense! No judgment! What will become of you? I'll tell you what will become of you! The world will teach you a lesson! You'll get what you deserve, and if there's a heaven, I'll look down from it, and with pleasure, with heartfelt satisfaction, I'll call out to you, "You see? I told you so! All along, your parents were right." And see if you don't laugh out of the side of your mouth then!
18. Autem, enim, igitur, demum, verum, and quoque, also vocatives, stand post-positive. A good rule, but relatively useless in adult life-how many of us have much call to translate into Latin? If, however, one uses a word like however or moreover in English, that, too, should stand post-positive. Or even still. Still, people break that rule all the time. And it pains you if you know the rule and see it being broken.
19. Work harder. Apply yourself and you'll be surprised how easy it is. With just a little effort on your part, just a little attention, just a little change in your basic attitude, and there's no reason at all why you can't do as well as Harriet Heller. Or Warren Harshman. Or Ed Selig. (And if I became any one of those people, would you be glad? Would you love me more? Would you at least, for five minutes, stop shouting at me?)
20. Play the field. Don't tie yourself down. Don't foreclose on your opportunities. Don't saddle yourself with more than you can carry.
21. Do not remove the back of this appliance. There are high-voltage components that should be serviced at an authorized Service Facility (see directory in the enclosed pamphlet for the facility nearest you.)
22. Start off on the right foot. First impressions count. A kind word turneth away wrath. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If you can't be good, be careful. Never apologize. Never explain. Live fast, die young, and have a good-looking corpse.
23. Begin again. Turn off machine, wait thirty seconds, and restart. But can we begin again? Isn't there a point where the basic trust that ought to exist between two people has been killed, where there is no common ground, no place to stand, no where to hide? You think you are immune from the rules that apply to ordinary people, but you are not. And it's a lesson you ought to have learned years ago. You can't think only of yourself. You have to consider how the other person is going to feel! What were you thinking of? What did you think you were doing? Are you a person or an animal? How can you be so cavalier as to risk everything you have, to jeapordize not only your own happiness but that of your children, your entire family? How can you throw it all away like that? How did we fail you? Were you brought up to do such things? What kind of an example did we set for you? You were always so smart, but you were never smart, had a mouth but no brain, wits, but no judgment, no sense...
24. A pint's a pound the world around. All cats are gray in the dark. He who calls the tune must pay the piper. A stitch in time saves nine. Who lies down with dogs gets up with fleas. A dog will have his day and then, old, be unable to learn new tricks, but will bay at the moon, from a manger no doubt. Ignore this paragraph. Relax. Don't worry, be happy. If you can't be with the one you love, then love the one you're with. Don't let any of it get to you. One good way to keep from smiling and to look as though you are paying attention is to translate what they are saying into French. Salud! Cochon! Canaille! Morceau de merde.
25. As long as there's life, there's hope. Words are weapons. Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me. (But the silver Tiffany letter opener? She can do some real damage with that!) You never know, do you? But a worm will turn. A cornered rat will fight. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Jesus, this is really happening! This can't be happening. This kind of thing only happens in the movies. If you bend the wrist down, you can break almost any grip (and the letter opener does, in fact, drop) and she runs out of the room, and the wailing continues, not with words anymore, but just keening, like a siren announcing, rather belatedly, an air raid we have been enduring here for some time now.) Any port in a storm. (I call my sister, and she says to get out of there, to make tracks, to skip out the back, Jack, and make myself scarce. I take the letter opener with me, not so much as evidence, but for a souvenir. And clean underwear, to avoid being run over by a bus. And dental floss and my toothbrush.) It's always darkest before the dawn. Once burned, twice careful. Practice makes perfect. A man can be judged by the company he keeps. Birds of a feather flock together. Silver should be polished at least once a month. Always keep fifty dollars in your wallet for emergencies.
26. It's no good crying over spilt milk.
27. What's done is done.
28. A leopard can't change its spots. The day will come, young man, when you'll realize that this was good advice and that you can't ride roughshod over people's feeling. You simply cannot go on this way. If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times! You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar. (Who wants to catch flies?) If only you could learn to apply yourself, if you could pay attention, if you could learn to curb that vicious tongue of yours, if you could count to ten before you speak, if you could do unto others, if you could learn from experience...
29. Experience is a hard master.
30. There is no substitute for a mother's love, but young people these days seem to have no understanding, no appreciation, no sense of decency, no consideration, no remorse... (Oh no, she's wrong there. Plenty of remorse!) Even so, even if you were going off to jail, even if you had killed some body, even if your picture was on the front page of all the newspapers and you were getting what was coming to you, were getting exactly what you deserved, no less and no more, were getting your proper comeuppance, were being taught the lesson it's taken you so long to learn, you'd still be my son! Always remember that. And I'd still love you.
"Instructions" from "Short Stories Are Not Real Life" by David R. Slavitt (c) 1987
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