HP’s CURVED BALL THEORY

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…

DEALING WITH EXCESS PAPER WORK

Getting a call from HP at six am is not strange by our standards, he phoned me often at that time of the morning. Today was a Wednesday, so to hear his voice on the other end of the line was no major deal.

When I read the caller ID on my cell phone a number of thoughts raced through my mind. They ranged from, he couldn’t make our ritual morning coffee meeting, to, he had an idea that just couldn’t wait until later. Now mostly I am rather good at not thinking negative thoughts. Jeez, HP would do me a mischief if he knew I did have the odd negative idea or thought flash across my mind, like the time my car was about to be rear ended by a taxi. The two seconds before the collision the poor taxi drivers’ family history came under very close scrutiny as no adjectives relating to their afflicted crotches were left unsaid. For HP even those situations have a bright and positive angle, totally annoying I know, but mostly a good thing. I was almost sure nothing bad had happened to him; no seriously, you still have to get to know HP.

However, this morning his call did make me frown, his requests were straightforward and too the point, and more then a little formal. I didn’t even have time to question him and the phone went dead. I was to meet him at noon at his house, oh, and I was to bring a few items that just didn’t make any sense at all. Where was I going to get strong, bittersweet seventy percent Cocoa, Belgian chocolate before one this afternoon? I thought to myself if this was another of his hair-brained ideas… a little voice in my head screamed ‘you are being negative, just go with it, they maybe daft ideas but they were mostly worth it.’

I arrived at his place at about twelve forty five, clutching my very rare and expensive purchase. I knocked on the door, without effect, after waiting a few minutes I walked around to the back of the house. There, right at the bottom of the garden was my friend and coach, HP. As soon as he saw me he smiled and waved with a long pointy stick. Shaking my head, I just stood there looking at him draped over one of his canvas camping chairs. He vigorously beckoned to me, indicating he would like me to join him in the vacant chair alongside him.  As I got closer I noticed to the right of my chair was his blue Afrox gas cooker with an empty pot on it, and in front of him was a ring of neatly packed bricks with another of the long dangerous looking pointy sticks.

Placing the paper packet, with the very expensive chocolate in it, on the ground next to my chair I turned and sat down. Before the canvas had taken the shape of my rear end, HP had his nose deep in the packet. Still with his nose in the brown paper packet, he glanced at me from over the serrated packet edge. The look I saw there told me immediately that I had been stitched, they screamed, ‘…you mean you actually went to all that trouble, I would have been happy with a few bars form the local café...’

Unfolding himself from the camping chair he stood up and opened the packet of dry twigs, he hunched down next to the ring of bricks, his knees, and other extremities getting in the way of each other. With the deftness and flair of a master swordsman he pointed the sharpened stick in my direction as if it were a steel épée and he had received lifelong tuition under the grand master  Girard Thibault d'Anvers himself. He proceeded to tell me how important it was for a man to know how to make a fire. That beside standing on one leg and holding the required equipment in one hand and pissing off a cliff or possessing the prowess of reaching grand heights up a dry wall with aforementioned equipment; the art of fire making was primal and men had a deep seated urge to simply burn things for no good reason at all. Of course he was correct on both accounts again, I had witnessed many grown man sit at a camp fire, stare blankly into a fire, and burn little sticks just to see what shape the ash would form, I had also witnessed them peeing off a cliff. Now this was fine but I was not getting any new life lesson here, I knew all this very well, however I had learned from experience that it was wiser in these situations to keep quiet and watch.

In the center of the ring of bricks, the kindling sticks formed a neat little teepee around scrunched up pieces of paper. The bright orange flame devoured the paper and began to burn the kindling he quickly stacked the larger wood to keep the flames alive. Before long, we had a grand little fire going. Taking a burning stick from the flame, he lit the gas bottle and to my horror, he tossed the chocolates into the pot. Before I could stand up, they had begun to melt. With the most ridiculous grin on his face, he laid his hand on my arm and pushed me back in the chair. From a box next to his chair, he whipped out a huge, and I mean huge packet of marshmallows. They were the little pink and white ones, the ones that bring back memories of cold nights and hot coco.

HP skewered three marshmallows on the end of the long pointy stick and handed it to me, doing the same for his stick he settled back into his chair. He then opened the box next to him and began to throw the sheets of paper on the fire. As the flame climbed he roasted his marshmallows, dunked them in the chocolate, and in one fluid motion all three disappeared into this mouth. He huffed and puffed and chewed gingerly all the time keeping his mouth in a great big ‘O’ and skewered another three, all the time tossing sheets of paper on the fire. It was only after my third three marshmallows that I recognised what paper he was using for us to roast our chocolate marshmallows…

…it was a manuscript of a novel I had been stuck on for years, and had recently asked him to look over…

‘What you doing?’ I yelled struggling to get out my chair

A puzzled look owned his face,

‘Getting rid of your excess paper work. Why?’

What lesson did I learn that day, beside a way cool method of getting rid of unwanted paper work, and eating very expensive marshmallows. It is sometimes better to scrap something and start again then to let the past hold you back from moving into something new.

IT’S A TRAP

HP and I were to meet for our traditional early morning cup of coffee. Who was HP? Well… you could say he is my unofficial, official life coach…well he likes to think so anyway. We get together most mornings, start the day with a strong black coffee at our local coffee shop, and mostly just talk about life and how we could singlehandedly achieve world peace. Most of these meeting are truly memorable and this morning was no exception.

I had not prepared myself for what I was about to experience, not that one could prepare oneself for what unfolded before me. HP, filled the coffee shop door, not that he filled it physically as he was a tall man definitely not a well very well built. The box caught my attention first. Yes a cardboard box, not just any cardboard box, a huge cardboard box, the size of which could house a fair sized bus. What ever else HP did this morning, he had certainly achieved his primary objective, I was smiling and I was curious. I not only wanted to find out what was in the box, I also wanted to know what the heck he was doing bringing it to a coffee shop. If his second objective was to make me laugh for nefarious medical reasons that only he knew about; the path and time taken from the entrance of the coffee shop to my table took on pandemic proportions. So, besides the excellent advice I knew I was going to get over a long piping hot cup of strong black Brazilian, I had already received my first smile ‘shot’ for the day.

The image of a wet noodle-looking character swaying rhythmically between the tables holding an oversized cardboard box above is head will keep my therapist in Gucci belts for the rest of his life. Let us be upfront and brutal about this; HP would most definitely not go head to head with Husain Bolt in the athletic build or prowess department. At best, one could describe him as skinny with benefits, especially if one judged things by the size of his nose. The Sicilian version of Swan Lake would be one way to describe it, or maybe more aptly, the dance of the seven veils, and the box and the tables, could be another. Because what unfolded in front of me could only be described as a ballet for al dente macaroni. I can safely say it would have brought tears to the eyes of our Russian friends Tchaikovsky and Vladimir Begichev. The ‘pièce de résistance’ of course, was the look on his face, truly a sight to behold. His eyes gleamed with a holy light reserved only for Tibetan monks with a chubby Buddha in their pocket. The man’s smile took on biblical proportions only Moses could describe as he looked over the parting Red sea.

If the shop had a dirt floor one could say he arrived at our table in a cloud of dust, suffice to say the event took place with a … well…let us just say an air of boxed excitement. Still holding the box high above his head, the enthusiastic smile now fading a little, he scanned the area around the table for a place to place his precious cargo. Turning around slowly in a full circle, realisation crept across his face as he eventually noticed eyes shining with tears of laughter were watching him. The religious gleam in his eyes flickered dangerously close to reverting to steely atheism, and the Moses smile now completely vanished. A self-conscious sheepish grin grew at the same rate as the accompanying red glow spread up his neck and into his cheeks from under his collar. 

Still holding the box in the air, he turned slowly to acknowledge the kind voice of the waitress behind him. While apologising repeatedly, he self-consciously fumbled the box nearly taking the head off the woman, sitting at the next table. The waitress deftly ducked a left turn and sidestepped a right cross, the box narrowly missing her face. Swaying from the waist, she moved under the box and moved in close, grabbing the box, she assertively wrestled it from his grip. Smiling gently she stepped back turned and walked back to the till with the box. All the while assuring him it would be safe there until he decided to leave the shop. HP hesitantly sat down constantly glancing at what he obviously previewed to be a low down box thief of note. We both glanced around the shop at the other patrons; there was not a single dry eye in the shop.

Our coffee arrived and by the time, he had taken the first sip of his coffee the noise and laughter had subsided and things were back to normal again. After ten minutes or so, I could not contain myself any longer and asked him what the box was in aid of. He leaned in close, looked around as if he was about to reveal the location of the cup of Holy Grail and said in a hushed tone.

‘Do you remember when we were as kids, how alive we used to feel when we slid down a grassy hill in a box?’

‘Yes’

‘Well, that’s what it’s for.’

‘What is?

‘The Box, are you coming with me?’ he added

‘Where?’

‘To find a hill!’

‘What for?’

‘To Slide down.’

‘What on earth would I want to do that for?’ The lost look on my face set him off.

‘Jeez are you stupid or what, must I always spell every thing out for you?’ He said raising his hands in desperation,

‘Because it’s a trap!’

‘What is?’

‘Becoming an adult’, an evil glint quickly replaced the remaining Holy Grail gleam in his eyes as he hissed between his teeth, furtively glancing over his shoulder at his perceived box thief.

‘You must never grow up, it will kill you’