Circumlocution
Beep beep, I’m a motorist. I want to get aviator goggles, a white scarf and driving gloves, like all the finest pimps do. The car’s fully enclosed (roof and all, I can haggle like a mother-bitch) but I don’t like to let that stop me. You never know when you’ll need to execute evasive flight maneuvers or do a barrel roll to impress the neighbours. Or do you? What aren’t you telling me? Let’s start at the beginning.
I bought a new car. Well, a car which is new to me. Ye Gods but I get sick of qualifying that. Language is infinite and I still can’t come up with an eloquent way of shouting from the roof tops my joy at the purchase of a used car. I bought a new used car? Ten years ago someone bought a new car, and now I’ve bought it too? A troupe of gift monkeys delivered upon me an aged automobile? Yep, that’s a keeper…
Before I elaborate, ‘cos I know y’all at the edge of your seat for a blow by blow of my shopping adventures, I have a few minor criticisms of the financial institutions and automotive yards of this here girt-by-sea (brief aside, apparently my brain is semantically primed to link the word automotive with Kylie Minogue’s finest work. For the past five minutes I’ve been unable to continue my finely tuned train of thought, no pun intended, because my every thought is besieged with “Come on baby, do the Locomotion”. Irrelevant, terrifying, but true)…
Okay, let’s pause here for another second while I indulge in a little insight into how my mind works, or more specifically, fails to work. One of the explanations for ADD and ADHD (which I don’t have) comes from the cognitive-behaviourist camp of layabouts. They say that part of the inability of the ADD afflicted to focus on one thing for sustained periods of time is due to a learned inattention to stimuli which basically means, for whatever reason, the brain has decided to ignore more or less everything that takes more than a few seconds to focus on. I don’t know if this is true, and to be honest I can’t really remember anything more than that one sentence about the issue because we covered it for about five minutes in one lecture three and a half years ago, during which I was probably either drunk, asleep, or somewhere between the two, but the concept always appealed to me. Come to think of it, it might have actually been an account for the disorganized thought processes of schizophrenics. I can’t remember which. I got one of the top scores for the unit in a class of six hundred. You should’ve seen the other guy.
Anyway, I think I have this. Learned inattention to stimuli, not schizophrenia. I find it very difficult to follow through with one thought because every idea sets of a chain reaction of sixteen other ideas, all of which I have something to say about. In normal conversation this poses its own problems, as any of you who know me are already aware, because I can rarely articulate all of one thought before I’m hijacked by one of my own tangents. And I talk considerably faster than I type. You see the problem? Buyer beware – it isn’t going to get better any time soon.
…so, banks and car yards, bastards one and all. You could have knocked me down with a feather. I know, I know, not exactly one of the great scientific discoveries of our age, but the folk-lore wisdom still doesn’t quite prepare you for the reality. Tony, my used-car salesman cliché incarnate, was almost a dead ringer for Danny DeVito’s portrayal of Roald Dahl’s Harry Wormwood. Fake tan, creepy looking bleached teeth, and I’m pretty sure a toupee was involved in there somewhere. At the very least a merkin. Don’t ask how I know, let’s just say I got a good price. He was one gold medallion away from owning a strip-club. Seriously, every time he cracked one of his many one-liners I paused in wait for canned laughter (how good would your own studio audience be? I’d be good to them if they’d only give me a chance). I haven’t heard so many equivocations and empty promises since I last stumbled across Parliament Time. See? He’s infected me with his cheap jokes and even cheaper suits. Damn it, once you start you just can’t stop.
Ack, I have more to say on the subject, so much more, but even in memory the pushy little bastard has raised my ire so much I’m just going to delve into unfettered belligerence if I continue now. And the banks, the banks dagnamit! Deep breaths, that’s the key. I’ll say more later. Or maybe not. This is nothing like what I imagined my first entry to be. So much for wit, pith, insight or relevance. Well, being succinct or relevant was never within my grasp, but still, it could have been so much more…
My inaugural hurrah which was meant to be in my prologue entry, goes to the stylish computer genie who made me this site and showed admirable restraint in not mentioning it’s been two or three months and I still haven’t made use of my new fun-and-shiny. Seriously, thank you and I’ll treat her better. My hurrah for today goes to J.P. Donleavy, for writing the most satisfying dialogue I’ve come across in years. Read him. Relish him. E gads, I love books.
