One quiet Sunday afternoon the front door bell rang, (for
the grammar fiends, yes I do have a bell
connected to the back door as well) I answered the door and looked into one of
those grins I had come to dread yet had become so accustomed to. It spelled
trouble with a capital ‘S’.
Experimental life lessons, coined by HP as ELL’s days, have
you ever lived through one of those?
Not?
Wow!
If you haven’t, then you haven’t even begun to live. They could
end up in one of two ways; the first, with red flashing lights, the wailing of
Ambulance sirens. Folk in blue gray theater overalls rubbing those electrical
paddle heart jump machine things together with malicious intent, or, second a
quiet evening with a good friend talking over drinks. The name had a possible
dual meaning, one, if you were from some part of the UK, one would refer to the fiery
place as ‘ell. You know they have a tendency to drop the H when talking of HELL
or it could be the total opposite and mean EL as in the name given, on
occasion, to the creator.
My heart sank as I looked at HP and wondered which ending
this day would bring.
He started to babble before I could invite him in,
‘You got you help me!’
‘With what?’
‘My experiment.’
‘What experiment?’
‘umm…’ he hesitated for a while
‘I suppose one could call it the CBT.’
‘CBT?’
‘Yes, curved ball theory!’
HP always had this look of slight disbelief on his face when
he had to explain himself to me. He seemed to think we were singing form the
same song sheet with everything in life.
I hesitated for a fraction too long, HP rolled his eyes and
proceeded to elaborate on his CB Theory, most of which was way beyond me. You
need to understand, I had to buy the ‘String Theory for Dummies’ book to even
understand what the term meant let alone understand the theory. HP eventually
realised that I was definitely not on the same planet as he was let alone the
same song sheet. After he eventually calmed down, I managed to first get him to
have a cup of coffee and out line the experiment for me before we set of the
park to put it into practice. What it boiled down to was standing at one end of
the park and having round objects thrown at me.
Now I need to explain something to you first, I regard
myself as a person with …well… an average intelligence. (Ok some folk would
argue different but we won’t go there now. ) When I heard the explanation of
the infamous experiment, I was a little concerned to say the least. I likened
it to repeatedly walking into a wall with ones eyes open and smiling while you
do it and not only that one smiles while saying thank you to the wall for the
experience.
This is where the argument about my average intelligence
comes in. I know for a fact that if I was an intellectual I would find some
excuse for the relevance of the extreme activity and how it would benefit
society in the long term. Added to which how my sacrifice in all this could be
justified as some morally acceptable collateral damage. On the other hand an
individual that is challenged in any way would look at it as a fun activity,
make sure there was a BBQ afterwards and as much alcohol available for
consumption to numb the pain.
Right there is the rub, enter average intelligence, I am not
challenged enough to want a BBQ and see it as fun and I am not overly concerned
how it would benefit society. I am however really concerned how it would effect
me and my immediate plans to stay relatively healthy.
Yes, you guessed it, not an hour later and we were in the
park, me on one end and him on another. Him with ten or so coconut looking objects
beside him and me with a knot in my stomach and wondering in if my insurance had
hospital cover. The task assigned to me sounded simple enough; I had to try to
dodge the incoming coconuts thrown at me. If I managed to dodge them, I had to
inspect the offending missile and its contents.
Ok, so according to HP’s CB Theory the steps to avoid this in
life were as follows;
One, duck or dodge,
Two, wait for a while,
Three, watch it hit the ground,
Four, wait again until it rolled to a stop,
Five, after closer inspection I must notice the coconut is
filled with a coconut milk cocktail mix.
Six, after consumption you realise it tastes good, you feel
good and whatever bothered you about life didn’t make much difference anyway.
HP’s experiment proved two things, his six step CB Theory
works and I am still of average intelligence, I was still in the middle of
BBQs, fun and alcohol, and doing something for the good on mankind…
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