A Socratic Monologue

  by  nembow 

Pssst! Come here.

Yes, you. I have something to explain. No, it's not going to hurt, I promise. Sit down, and look at me when I speak.

Here's a little mental puzzle for you. If someone tells you that they are allergic to a particular food, do you go out of your way to make sure to serve it to them when they come to your house?

"Hey, Sharon, I know you're allergic to peanuts, so make sure you have one of these peanut butter cookies that I made especially for you. Why are you crying? No, don't leave! Wait! I —" <slam>

Of course you wouldn't. You're a nice person. Relax. I'm not done, yet, though.

If you have vegan friends, do you make sure to put butter or yogurt in their food, but hide it from them until after they've tried it?

"Frank, I'm glad you enjoyed those vegan mashed potatoes that I made especially for you! I put butter and sour cream in them because I knew you'd enjoy it more. See, there's nothing wrong with . . . wait, why are you so angry with me? I didn't —" <slam>

I know, I know. It seems ludicrous to even suggest that, doesn't it? Again, you're a nice person. I like you. No, I don't think that of you. But I have another, more subtle one.

"Roger, thank you for letting me know that your daughter is terrified of dogs, but I assure you that we don't own any dogs. . . Sure, you can bring her over any time. I'd love to babysit." [later] "Well, no, those aren't our dogs; I told you, we don't own any! But I knew she was coming over, so I offered to babysit my brother's three pit bulls while he's out of — Oh, for Pete's sake, why's she screaming? Honestly, I didn't —" <slam>

I know, I know. You're shaking your head because you would never, ever do something like any of those things. You're a nice person who generally means well. But I have just one more exercise. Seriously, it won't take but a moment.

OK, imagine you've stopped at a hotel for the evening, and they don't allow pets. But you have a little chihuahua that's cute as a button and hardly ever has an accident in the house. Would you just, you know . . . ignore the hotel's rule about pets, because your chihuahua is so totes adorbz that it couldn't possibly apply to little fluffy-wuffums?

From your facial expression, I apologize for insinuating that you would ignore a sincere request just because you didn't think it applied to you. Calm down. Have a sip of water. Better?

A propos of nothing, were you aware that I'm severely arachnophobic? You know, from 'arachnid,' which means 'spider,' and 'phobos' which is one of the moons of Mars.

Ha! No, I'm just kidding. '-phobia' means 'fear.' So if you put them together, 'arachnophobia' means 'fear of spiders.' Usually given as 'an irrational fear of spiders.' Although the 'irrational' part is not the most important word in that phrase. 'Fear' is.

Yes, actually, it is a phobia, for me, and not just a 'don't like.' I 'don't like' Brussels sprouts. I 'don't like' roller coasters. I am absolutely white-knuckled, heart-rate-doubled, fight-or-flight-kicked-into-high-gear, fucking terrified of spiders. Just talking about them makes my skin crawl. If one were to actually get on me? Oh, Hell no. You wouldn't believe I could move that fast. I've actually harmed myself getting away from a small one that had the misfortune to crawl on me.

What's that? Even the little ones, yes. Those adorable fuzzy little dancing spiders that couldn't harm anyone? Yep. Freak me out only just a little less than those foot-across kinds that hunt down birds and eat them. And even things that aren't spiders but look like them freak me out. Like harvestmen or daddy longlegs or those whip scorpions. Evil, creepy motherfuckers that don't belong on my planet and need to get the fuck off it, and right now.

Oh, I know, and I'm sorry you're uncomfortable. But I do have a point. I was wondering why people who I can only guess are well-meaning — because I can't imagine anyone I actually like doing it with evil intent — post pictures or videos of spiders on their Facebook page and then go out of their way to tag me so that I have to look at the picture. Even just to unsubscribe or remove it from my feed.

I know, I can't believe anyone would do that, either, but you'd be stunned at how often it happens. Whether it's gigantic, five-inch spiders swarming with babies, perched in the corner of some unsuspecting person's bedroom, or a video of a guy trying to catch one on his bathroom ceiling using a swivel chair and a schlupperware container or an extreme close-up of a multicolored, 'cute' spider dancing for his mate, I've been forced to see them all. We will not even discuss the 'raining spiders' video.

Oh, believe me, if I knew spiders are involved, I wouldn't click the link! But it's often unsuspecting, because the person thinks it's funny to send me a link without telling me what it is. I basically don't trust links anymore.

Oh, I'm sure they do it to their other friends, as well. Like, they'll send pictures of mangled corpses to people who've recently lost a loved one in a car accident, or a movie of a clown convention to someone who's coulrophobic. Oh, look it up. I did.

Don't look so hang-dog. As I said, I'm sure that if you've done something like that, you meant well, or thought it was funny. I'm just explaining in the gentlest possible way to you — and anyone else who might also hear this — that it's not funny. And asking you to kindly cut it out. Maybe analogies will do more to help than merely asking has.

Oh, sure, you can go, now. Make sure to have one of those chocolate cookies over by the door on the way out. I absolutely promise there's nothing in them that would make you sick or swell up or run from the room screaming.

I mean, you know. Probably. I don't know what your particular . . . Wait, where are you go— ? <slam>

---

In all seriousness, if you ever put a spider on me, it better be the funniest thing you've ever seen in your life, because it will be the last time we ever speak. Some people actually do this to their arachnophobic 'friends.' There are videos on YouTube to prove how 'funny' it was. How do I know? Read the above.

Spring in Atlanta

Here in Atlanta, we have nine seasons, just like everyone else:

• pre-summer, which starts just after spring and runs until about mid-April and is characterized by pollen, pollen, more pollen, temperatures in the upper 70s and 80s, and pollen
• summer, which starts in mid-April and goes to about Halloween and is usually characterized by temperatures in the 90s and 100s 24 hours per day
• pre-autumn, which starts in November and lasts approximately 2 to 3 weeks and is also characterized by lots and lots of lovely yellow pollen
• autumn, which lasts from 8:17 AM to 8:19 AM on a random Thursday in November, usually around Thanksgiving
• pre-winter, which lasts from about Thanksgiving to around Christmas, and is characterized by people wearing winter clothing even though they don't actually need it, because it's expected of them since it's December
• winter, which lasts from about Christmas to early/mid February
• pre-spring, which happens on a random day in early March
• spring, which lasts from 3:14 AM to approximately 5:37 PM on a random Tuesday in early March

You blink, you miss spring. Them's the breaks when you live in Atlanta. Oh, and I forgot monsoon season, which overlaps pre-autumn, autum, pre-winter, winter, and pre-spring. And sometimes spring.

Pre-spring was yesterday. There's no pollen, yet, but the birds are getting excited about the weather changing, and you can sort of feel spring hovering off in the distance, unsure whether to show its face. I think the birds must be cajoling it to come out and play.

It's been cold and warm in turns, wet and dry in turns, and we've had more snow than I can remember seeing in the entire time I've lived here (approaching 11 years, now).

But last night it was glorious. Not too warm, not too cold. With just enough moisture in the air to make things smell fresh and clean, but not so much that it was falling from the sky.

I slept with my bedroom window open, and the entire upstairs of the house smelled like spring even before I got into bed last night. After several months of my breathing the same air over and over, this is a very welcome change.

The cats enjoyed it, too. I woke up at some indeterminately early hour when the sun was not yet out to the sounds of claws scrabbling on hard plastic. I know exactly what this sounds like because I've heard it before: Matt climbs the window unit air conditioner I borrowed from a friend to help keep my utility bills low in the summer. He does this to look out my bedroom window when the shades are up, which is rarely.

The neighbors have a light in their back yard that aircraft use to navigate the city by. The astronauts on the space station see it and say, "We must be over Atlanta." The Nazis could easily have adopted it for questioning prisoners of war. "Tell uz ze location uff ze reziztanze. Ve haff vays uff mehkink you talk..."

So when I awoke to the scrabbling sound (Matt is not aware that, as a feline, he can simply jump. It's kind of sad, really.) I glanced in the direction of the window and saw his silhouette framed therein, the retina-searing light of the Gestapo lamp forming a fuzzy halo around him.

Then I heard a sizzling sound. Someone was making bacon.

Mmmm, bacon. I closed my eyes and tried to drift back into the dream I was having.

Wait a minute, I thought. Bacon? That can't be right. The only ones here are me and the cats, and if they could make bacon, I'd be out on the street.

Fighting my way back into consciousness, I finally recognized the sound as rain gently falling against the house.

"Great," I thought. I wrestled my way out of bed (I have one of those foam mattresses, so "getting out of bed" actually involves a bit of gymnastics.) and over to the window in which Matt was sitting. I felt the sill. Dry. So the rain was, indeed, gentle, and not blowing in.

I left Matt to his silent vigil and crawled back into bed and drifted away again. I think I tanned from the neighbor's back-yard light. (Have I mentioned that it's really bright?)

I woke up again some time later when Matt joined me in bed. Not by jumping (see above), but by grabbing the mattress and pulling himself up.

Graceful, he's not.

I'm hoping that I have a few more weeks of being able to sleep with the window(s) open before it's so stiflingly hot that the house becomes a sauna, but from past experience I fear that I'll be wrestling the window unit back in place before long, and making do with the soothing white-noise sounds of the compressor to lull me to sleep.

The Persistence of Humor

Prompted by a podcast I just recently started listening to—Podictionary—I looked up the book to which this post is linked: The Jests of Hierocles and Philagrius, by (duh) Hierocles and Philagrius, and translated into English in 1920 by the Rowfant Club in Cleveland, OH.

These are jokes—and I use that term rather loosely—that are at least hundreds of years old. And yet...

...And yet, some of them are ones I've heard before and thought were original with someone else. Take, for instance, this lovely selection from page 21, Jest 18:

A certain person meeting a pedant, said, "The slave you sold me died."

"By the gods," replied the other, "he never did such a thing when he was with me."

Sound familiar? It should. You've probably heard the joke 1000 times in some other form. The host of the podcast even made the point that it bears a resemblance to the famous Monty Python "Dead Parrot" sketch.

Or how about this one, Jest 13 from page 20:

Two pedants were complaining to each other because their fathers were living. One of them asked, "What do you wish? Shall each one strangle his own father?"

"By no means," replied the other, "lest we be called parricides. But if you are willing, you shall slay my father and I will kill yours."

Therein lies the plot of Patricia Highsmith's 1950 novel Strangers on a Train (and the subsequent Alfred Hitchcock film by the same name; and I'm told "Throw Mama from the Train").

In a book I read recently, Hightower said that the idea just popped into her head of two people meeting by chance who trade murders. I wonder if she had read some part of the Hierocles and Philagrius, or if the idea is one that crops up from time to time, like a bad case of ergot poisoning.

Some of them are clearly the precursors of blonde jokes or <Ethnic> jokes or little idiot jokes that I remember fondly from my childhood. Take this example of Jest 3 from page 17:

A certain person coming to a pedant who was a physician said, "Doctor when I awake from sleep I have a dizziness for half an hour and then I recover."

The physician replied, "Get up after the half hour."

I think I detect the "Well, stop doing that!" punchline lurking somewhere in the dim recesses of that Jest.

It seems that some humor is truly ageless. And then, there's this. Jest 45 from page 29:

A pedant visited his mother by night and, being beaten for this by his father, he said, "It is only a short time since you were with my mother and you suffered nothing from me and now you are angry at finding me once with my mother."

Paging Mr. Rex. Paging Mr. Oedipus Rex. Please proceed to the white courtesy phone.

But there are ways in which humor has changed over the years, or perhaps Hierocles and Philagrius wrote for an audience that was far more learned than those of today. I've read Jest 76 from page 38 a number of times, and even looked up "propitious" to make sure it means what I think it means, and it still just makes no sense to me:

The priest, upon giving the suppliant's olive branch to a pedant who was entering the temple of Serapis, said, "The god be propitious to you." He replied, "The god be propitious to my little pig for I do not need it."

I got nothin'. And a whole lot of it.

And then...well, I don't even know what to say about this one, Jest 48 from page 30:

A pedant was tying on some new sandals. When they squeaked, he paused and said, "Do not squeak or you will injure your two legs."

There is a footnote in the text after this one. It very dryly says, "The sense is not clear." Well, no duh, Einstein. It continues, "Eberhard gives two readings with the conclusion utrum verius sit diiudicabit qui intellexerit."

Um...sure, yeah. I...um...get that totally. Verius sit indeed diiudicabit qui intellexerit...uh...dude. Get down with your bad Latin self.

I started to just look up the one Jest mentioned by the podcast. An hour later, I was still reading one or two of them during lulls between bouts of protracted C++. All the examples I've used here are just from the Pedants section. There are some 16 sections.

I will no doubt read the entire thing. I hope I've intrigued those who might be reading this enough to give it a try for themselves.