This Etiquette Stuff Is Getting Out Of Hand

This etiquette stuff is getting out of hand.

Tonight, my son asked me if he could have a snack. Of course, I said “no”, because he did not say “please”. He asked me what difference it made if he said the word “please” or not. I told him, for the millionth time, that saying “please” is a matter of etiquette so the person who you are asking knows you are being courteous and sincere. He argued that if the asker is asking in a polite manner, shouldn’t the askee already perceive that the asker is being courteous (although, he didn’t delineate his argument in those words. Instead he chose the words, “So what?”). He had a point.

What difference does it make if we use these magical words of etiquette when communicating with people? If we are treating one another with respect in our speech and our actions, that should be enough. Words of propriety like “please” and “thank you” and “kindly” and “are you gonna finish that” are merely social pitfalls providing overly sensitive people the opportunity to become offended should someone’s discourse not meet their uppity standards. These terms are unneeded formalities that only lead to more dissention in our society. If you do not agree with me then I will fight you, and you will prove my point. Besides, there are too many rules of etiquette to remember.

To simplify this etiquette conundrum for people worldwide, the son and I came up with one word that can be used in any language in any courtesy needed situation to prove to the receiver that the speaker/writer/sign-languager/telepathicer/smoke signaler etc… is being courteous. That word is joad. It should always be used as its own sentence to be presented immediately following the statement or question in need of illustrating the state of politeness. For example: “Pass me the salt. Joad!” I forgot to tell you, the “joad” sentence must always be used exclamatorily so people know you are serious. Here is another example, “That was a lovely used toilet brush you gave us for our wedding. Joad!” Note, the person in the last example could have easily over-enthused and said, “Joad! Joad, very much!” Don’t do that. It’s a little pathetic.

That’s about it for the rules of “joad.” We don’t want to attach too many rules to it. It will only lead to more whining and silent treatments in the world. To acclimate my kids to a courteous life of living with joad, I made them practice using it with each other. The following is an excerpt of their joad training.

“That’s a lovely zit on your face.”

“Joad! Hand me the remote. Joad!”

“Here you go.”

“Joad!”

“No, joad! to you.”

No, really, joad! to you.”

“You’re a joad!”

“No, you are!”

“Uh-uh, you’re the joadiest joad! I’ve ever seen!”

“No, you are!”

“Is that all you can come up with, Joad!”

“Joad! to infinity!”

“Joad! to infinity plus one!”

“One more joad! to you than whatever joad! you said to me!”

“What?!”

“JOAD!”

“JOAD!”

“Why don’t you stick a joad! up your…”

“TIME FOR BED, KIDS!”

Derf 'til You Puke

I was reading something the other day – I don’t remember what, exactly, maybe an obituary writing manual – and I came across the word “underfed”. It looked strange to me, as if it should be pronounced “un-derft” instead of “un-der-fed”. I thought, “un-derfed” should be its own word, as in undoing an act of derfing. For all I know, it is an official word. So I looked it up in the dictionary. To my surprise, underfed was in there! Its definition is to have fed insufficiently. This leads me to believe that, in turn, “to derf” is to feed sufficiently. I plan to derf myself on a nice steak dinner tonight to celebrate my new knowledge.

No More Amboolunts to the Hossuhbul

Remember when I was in kindergarten and I could not pronounce the word “hospital”? Instead I would pronounce it “hossuhbul”. No matter what I did, I could not figure out how to work that “T” sound into the word. It was as if I was speaking Hawaian without the glottal stop. The best I could do was phonetically average the “P” and “T” phonemes to come up with a “B”.

Naturally, the other kids made fun of me, especially since I could not properly pronounce the word “ambulance” either, saying “amboolunts” instead. They would mock me, “Are you going to take the amboolunts to the hossuhbul, little kindergarten version of Moist Rub?” Shut up, Riley Teirney and Vanessa With The Red Ribbon In Your Hair and Joe Who Smelled Like Pee. All of you - STOP IT!

Not only could I not pronounce “ambulance”, the word itself confused me. How could “ambulance” and “ambulate” come from the same Latin root meaning to walk? Were the original ambulances boy scouts who would walk the ailing to the hospital? What if I had a broken leg? Would I still have to walk to the hospital? Whose insane idea was it to make sick people walk to the hospital? It was probably that sadist Hippocrates. Although, he probably didn’t know what ambulare meant in Latin since he was Greek. Maybe he was just bad at Latin. Everybody is bad at Latin. Even Cicero couldn’t remember when to use hic, haec or hoc. As you can see, I was a confused little kindergartener. I’ll give Hippocrates the benefit of the doubt.

But I won’t give Riley, Vanessa and Joe the benefit of the doubt. Do you know what kind of emotional damage your cruel ribbing did to me? Well, none, actually. I just happened to remember my puerile speech impediment while I was making a speech at work while sucking on a Tootsie Pop. I kept stumbling on the word “infrastructure”. The weird part was my speech was not even supposed to include the word “infrastructure”, but whenever I got lost I would say it so people would think I was smart. I forgot all about the “hossuhbul” ordeal until then, at which point I took the Tootsie Pop out of my mouth and enunciated, “Hos - Pi- Tal” and finished the speech. This didn’t seem to confuse the audience any more than they already were.

I sure hope Riley, Vanessa and Joe were not at my speech. Just in case they were, I want to make it clear that I can pronounce “infrastructure” when I don’t have a Tootsie Pop in my mouth. I can also now pronounce “hospital” and “ambulance”, and I can even pronounce “ennui”, but I’m too disinterested to remember what it means. I hope Riley, Vanessa and Joe remember how they treated me and feel shame. But, I cannot blame them for what they did. I must have sounded like an idiot. What kind of lunatic goes around saying “hossuhbul”? I must have been out of my mind. I wonder if Joe still smells like pee.

Word of the Moment 1

I used to draw a comic called Comicabulary. Its purpose was to improve the quality of the world’s (and my own) English vocabulary by providing the definition of a word with an accompanying comic using that word to provide contextual reinforcement. Initially, I did not plan to draw a comic panel. My original intention was to present a silly paragraph or two using the word in outlandish contexts in order to develop a unique and memorable impression of the word. My hope was to create an environment that would promote the memory of the meaning of each word. Writing paragraphs proved to be too difficult for me, so I decided to draw instead. Hence, Comicabulary.

I created a set of these comics and sent them to a friend of a friend who happened to work at a comic syndication company. She told me that the comics were good and delightful, but their company wasn’t looking to promote educational tools and it was not the right kind of comic for them at that time. What she really meant was they sucked. Here’s proof:

I was never very happy with them, since they didn’t have enough of a humorous edge for my tastes. However, I hoped they might appeal to the Reader’s Digest crowd. So, why didn’t I send them to Reader’s Digest? Because, I gave up, of course. I’m not very tenacious – more Teflonacious. Ultimately, I was too enraptured with other aspects of life, like watching TV and thinking about keeping the world safe from alien invasion. Who knows, maybe someday I will exhume the comic. In the meantime, I’m going to give my original idea a go, manifested in a recurring Leper Pop feature: Word of the Moment. I don’t want to call it Word of the Day because, I believe, that title is already being used, and I don’t want to get sued. Besides, there is no way in hell I would be able to do this every day. Wisdom comes from knowing your limitations, or, at least, relying on them.

So, stand back, here it goes.

quoin (kwoin) noun – an exterior angle of a wall or other piece of masonry; cornerstone; keystone. verb – to secure or raise with a quoin.

Nobody cares about the quoins in the world. More often than not, we try to avoid running into the quoins while barreling around corners. Everybody loves barreling around corners. Only the sadistic love to barrel into quoins.

Sure, some quoins are bolstered with thicker bricks than the rest of the wall. Even decorative stone, sometimes. But the intentions of those efforts do not have the quoins’ best interests in mind. Those intentions nourish the structural fortitude of the buildings for which the quoins support. These quoin constructors are more interested in ensuring their buildings do not fall down than they are in praising the quoins.

Let us examine the quoin’s counterpart and archrival – the inside corner. The inside corner lives a nurtured life. The inside corner is basted with attention. The inside corner’s greatest offense is a little dusty build-up that can be wooshed easily away by The Swifter. The inside corners in rooms are always considered when determining the décor.

Woman: Honey, what are we going to put in that corner of the room?
Man: A beer keg refrigerator.
Woman: Don’t be silly. I think I’ll pile my stuffed animals there.
Man: Where do you want the TV?
Woman: Oh, put it in that corner over there, and make sure you don’t hit the exterior angle of the wall of the closet when you move the TV.
Man: You mean the quoin?
Woman: What’s a quoin?
Man: How the hell should I know? Can I put the TV down now?
Woman: Not until I decide what to put in the rest of the corners of the room.
Man: I wish we didn’t decide to buy a house with an octagonal family room.

I’m as guilty as anybody in this matter. In the corners of my family room are my amp, a file cabinet of art/craft supplies, a book case, two pool cues, a door way and a pile of leaves. And of the quoins? Nothing, except my son’s guitar is leaning against one of them, and I will have to beat his ass for that. That’s all I need is for his grandma to come barreling her way from the kitchen and smash the hell out of the guitar with her Gene Simmons commemorative boots we bought her for Christmas last year.

In theory, the quoins are all supposed to be left free of debris so we do not trip on anything when barreling our way through the house. It’s a proven fact that humans love to barrel. We were bred to barrel. The social evolutionary consequences of this aspect of human development has led to unadorned quoins worldwide, except for some third world cultures where barreling around quoins is against their religion.

Barreling is a modern sociological human trait. It is one we share with dogs. Dogs love to barrel around quoins, too. They don’t care what is in their way, especially when there is someone at the door. In fact, they prefer to knock things over when barreling. This is why they wag their tails maniacally, so they can destroy our stuff even if they miss it with their barreling. They don’t care. It’s not like they paid for the stuff or will have to clean up the mess. It seems as if they don’t care about anything except for eating, getting pet and going outside. And barreling. And seeing if somebody is here. Can somebody remind me why we let dogs live with us? They certainly don’t care about quoins. And, neither do we. Maybe that’s the bond that keeps us together. Quoins. Quoins will keep us together. Think of my dog whenever, Some sweet standing quoin comes along while we barrel along, Don’t go around, You gotta be strong, Don’t Stop, ‘cause the quoin really loves you, Stop, the quoin is thinking of you, Look in my heart and let quoins keep us together. Whatever.

I think it’s time to change our view of the quoin. However, before we start enhancing our quoins with plants, and totem poles, and piles of candy that we are supposed to consider as art, and lawn furniture, and urns of ashed loved ones, and giant cardboard cut-outs of Charles Barkley, we will need to become more agile barrelers in order to avoid the items with which we celebrate our quoins. We need to start teaching precision barreling techniques in our schools, write a magazine called Better Barreling and create a home improvement show on TLC called This Old Barreler.

Above all that, we should get to know our quoins. I propose an annual world-wide Hug A Quoin Day. It will be held on the first Thursday of every August, and will require one day of post-hugging recuperation, so we can all enjoy a 4 day weekend in the summer (it is true - I don't care about people in the Southern Hemisphere), when we can actually enjoy ourselves outside, unlike the silly Thanksgiving “holiday” they throw at us in November when it’s usually crummy outside and we are forced to sit inside and eat and get drunk. I guess that’s not so bad, either, but the quoins deserve summer hugs so they can get a sense of our sweat and feel a little bit human, if only for a moment. I implore you all to write a letter to your most sensitive and malleable public official and demand that the quoins have a voice in our government in the form of a summer four day weekend, so we can get drunk outside and maybe even have sex in the woods. The quoins want us to cherish them in this manner. Just be careful to look out for barreling grandmas when you are hugging your quoin or when you having sex in the woods.