joining the herd

Try it you'll like it, or maybe you won't, but at least you'll know you don't like it.  I have never understood people who never drank a drop or smoked a little dope.  Hey there's this whole carnival going on right outside your window, don't you want to see the bearded lady?

I'm not buying Old Dog's explanation.  Well maybe the privacy part, but then I've never understood the privacy fetish, but I'm not going there today, because it's a bit like the liberal agenda, a bit of a bore,  Anyway I think the real reason Old Dog isn't posting.his plate of shrimp from Snappy's is because everybody else is doing it.  There's a certain nerve in the body, some of us have more of it, and some don't have it at all, but when the maddening crowd rushes after the bright new thing, it causes you to stiffen your back and cry out, "Not me."

It's like, I don't know, Game of Thrones.  I've never seen a second of it , wouldn't know where to find it, all I know about it is when I saw a parody of it on South Park, and didn't know what they were parodying until there was some mention of it.  The first thing I think is, if it's that popular, if that many people like it, how can it possibly be any good?

There is just something very revolting about the mob, the glaze in their eyes, the salver from their lips, the thunder of their hooves, as they rush past you, maybe occasionally one of them bumps into you, grabs your lapels and grunts and points, before hurrying on so as not to get behind in the mob.  But there you stand, straight and resolute, and is that pride causing that curl in your lower lip, the sneer of the proud, I am not like them, my eyes do not glaze, my lips are free of slaver and my hooves stay rooted?  Well of course it is.

I've never understood why pride was one of the seven deadly sins, it's so, I don't know, noble, but it does feel good, maybe that's why.

Cell phones, you know, I resisted until last year.  I looked with scorn at the thundering herd, phones in their ears, worse, in front of their faces, as they plinked and plonked heedless of their surroundings.  And then the crowd began murmuring in my ear.  They'd ask for my cell and when I didn't have one they would roll their eyes and say, hey this isn't cute anymore, maybe like I am pestering Old Dog to come and see the wonder.

And then one afternoon I was to meet my sister at Pizzeria Due and I sat and sat and she never showed and I ate my pizza alone.  It turned out that the engagement was for Pizzeria Uno.  Had I had a smart phone I would have been able to check my email and notice that I was in the wrong pizzeria, and more simply we would have been able to call each other and straighten this thing out.

I don't generally carry the damn thing with me when I go out unless I am meeting somebody, but everytime circumstances cause me to pull the damn thing out and consult  it I am embarrassed to be seen doing so, as if I, were one of the herd..