A Sensitivity to Things

Daily Blog Tips is hosting a competition, and inviting writers to submit a post involving the number three. The following is my entry—can you tell I wrote it in three minutes (give or take an hour)?

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I have a minor speech impediment involving the number three. For reasons more complex than counting to three I say “fr-ee” rather than “thr-ee.” It has been a subject for teasing since life-time immemorial.

One cause of my unusual diction may be a face-plant, more plants on face, face planted on pot-plant holder at the age of two—a face-first collision, teeth-work on metal assisted from behind by a girl jealous of the attention her grandmother, my baby-sitter garnered me. Despite emergency surgery my dental work never completely recovered—in fact several teeth never reappeared, albeit years later via a surgeon’s scalpel. Incisors violently misaligned, it is simple arithmetic that I have never been able to align three simple letters: “T-H-R.”

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It may be just as well I am not involved in sales—no doubt I would run some-one out of business, constantly mis-quoting untenable discounts on items priced with the number three—“Yes sir, it really is only ‘Free Firty-Free!’”

Despite my impediment I did actually do sales once—telephone marketing for a dish on every roof satellite television service, where luckily there were more than free channels, and many of the offers were three. Sorry—I am supposed to be talking about my speech impediment, not my dyslexia…

I only lasted a month in the job—even that several weeks longer than the average—cold-calling less than receptive strangers for three hours a night the very definition of the term “churn” before such became common-place; but a job was a desperately needed job, walked to without enthusiasm after university lectures and before finding something better.

Before I quit—a moment most definitely the highpoint of my brief tenure—I worked out that the reason the call centre supervisor—a young man approximately my own age but with the airs of one considerably senior, and who like a school teacher sat at the front and middle of the room—was always on the telephone was because he was listening in on our conversations. He would put down his phone from time to time, eye us all like a group of particularly bad students, and walk over to make unusually informed, usually cutting comments. With the thin veneer of telephone-pleasantness, only dollar motivated concern now terminated, I can in my darkest imagination (almost) imagine a metal pot-plant holder removing his knowing smirk…

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Someone who actually is in sales inspired me to make up a joke the other day. Like most moments of creative brilliance—value judgement here admittedly my own—it came spontaneously and unrehearsed—an Indian friend of merchant caste and notoriously tight with money prompting the following off-colour joke:

Question: “Why can’t Indian’s count past three?”

Answer: “One, two, three… did somebody say free?”

You probably had to be there—the humour increases when the guy with the Scottish last name and speech impediment tells it…

In case you’re feeling sorry for my friend, he gives as good as he gets in the teasing; if you’re feeling sorry for me and my poor sense of humour, I completely understand.

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The only time I’ve ever appeared on television—a bottom of the barrel, called in at the last minute impersonation of a presenter for the Inspiration-News podcast—involved me having to the say the number three, and my inability to do so earned the considerable irritation a very particular German director—“There is no ‘free’ in the script, ja?” Not that he could talk, at least not in English—his “v’s,” “w’s,” and “f’s” were all mixed up to say the least. I think we abandoned that part of the script now that I think about it…

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At no extra cost
A music video involving London, ice skates, fairy-dust, beards (unfortunately) and the number three…

I checked the Thursday Thirteen meme out a while ago, and I must say that I didn’t get it at first. Unlike other memes, which in the blogging sense mean being tagged by someone else to participate in a conversation which, much like the only invented in the seventies moniker, resembles an idea spreading and replicating itself, virus-like across the internet, Thursday Thirteen is very much self-participatory—i.e. you make up your own list and then go and read others—tagging and commenting being strictly optional.

Because I’ve always been highly suspicious of new terms that don’t describe anything particularly new—we used to call these fads and crazes in the offline world—I’ve taken a while to catch on to this meme thing. But before I get called a wet blanket…

Staying offline for a moment longer, a meme is kind of like a chain letter but better, which reminds me that I really should tell my grandmother, still new to the internet but very well meaning, to stop sending the entire family“Read this now and pass it on to ten people immediately” chain-letter spam. But as you might have guessed, I really don’t have the heart (God bless her).

Right, back on topic. Thursday Thirteen, much like Wordless Wednesday is a networking and blog promotion tool. Every Thursday you post thirteen facts about, well, anything—although preferably in some way related to yourself (isn’t everything when you’re blogging?).

The part I didn’t get though is how exactly that is networking? Well, if you scroll, and scroll and scroll through the website you’ll find that you’re encouraged to visit other Thursday“Thirteen’ers” and leave comments on their blogs. You can also promote your site by participating in the Thursday Thirteen forum and blogroll.

Ho-hum… whatever. It all sounds too hard. And did I mention that their graphics are terrible! Being a design snob from way back my first reaction was and still is,“Ew!—I’m not putting that on my site!”

However, being an open and eminently flexible personality (it’s official, my Intrapersonal Intelligence is (self) rated at 96%) a.k.a. a Libran, I’m prepared to revisit my hasty decision, aided and abetted by Titania Starlight, a recent visitor here (thanks MyBlogLog) and participant in the best Thursday Thirteen I have yet seen, Thirteen Funny Facts about Me As a Child.

Ok, so here goes…

Thirteen Probably Self-Serving and Highly Selected Facts About Me As A Child

1. I was born three months premature and weighed approximately 2.2 pounds. I didn’t really get much bigger…
2. I used to be able to dream with my eyes open, although only at night time, as doing so during the day would get you committed, no matter how seriously cool it would be.
3. I hated all fruit and many vegetables. I have improved.
4. I never had a dog, and all my cats died or ran away.
5. I used to dream of being a kitten
6. I saw a ghost once. It was a young girl all in white standing at the end of my bed. I freaked out and ran into my mother’s room.
7. I was pushed from behind as a two-year old face first into a metal plant holder, smashing many of my teeth up into my gum. My smile never really recovered.
8. I taught myself to play the piano and would play Beethoven’s Für Elise over, and over, and over. I later took lessons and was apparently very talented, if I could only“get over my mental block” according to one teacher.
9. I was never ever in a fight. But I did once punch a bully in the stomach and then run away.
10. I lived in Canada for a year at age 11, hated almost every minute of it, and now think it was probably character building. And despite myself have some very good memories.
11. I hated going to Church but would read a picture Bible over and over. I even tried to pray every night before going to bed.
12. I would only listen to classical music until I was 10. The first tape I ever brought was by Cyndi Lauper, and I regretted it soon afterwards. The next was The Cars, with the same result, as I had only really liked one song. The third was Nik Kershaw. And I used to listen to Madonna in secret because my mother didn’t approve.
13. My father said he’d buy me a tape once, and then ignored the list I gave him and brought home Bob Marley. I was so disappointed I smashed the tape to pieces.

So there are my thirteen facts, and it’s not even Thursday!

I believe at this point in the meme I am supposed to tag other people. Well, if you’re reading this, you know who you are. Leave a comment or trackback and I’ll do an update mentioning you, and will definitely read your list.

But just don’t go thinking I’m going to put the Thursday Thirteen graphic on my site…

Update

• Alf of thousandeye has left a list of his childhood facts in the comments section of this post. Despite the fact he only got to number nine and forgot his number eight, I enjoyed them very much.
• Camille of Now has also written her own Thirteen Childhood Facts, of which the following is definitely my favourite:“At ten, during recess at school one day, I saw a bunch of kids beating up my little brother. They were all bigger than me but I jumped in anyway and started pounding them away from my brother. I lost a lot of hair and when the teachers found us they blamed me. I took my brother home at lunch and refused to go back to that school ever. My mother found us a new school.” Outstanding story!
• My favourite by Larry of Mental Blog:“My experience in public, in performance, began in Grade 2. I sang a song at a school event, like a Christmas concert or something. The first time I sang over a microphone. I knew even then there was something special about that. I literally felt the electricity. No, it wasn’t a shock from the mic.”