Zapping an octogenerian.

For a self-confessed stone-hearted misanthrope, I’ve got a irritatingly genial streak, which sometimes manages to climb over the boulders of hatred; across the lake of woe; up the incline of social ineptitude, and finally, to bask in the glorious breeze of ambivalent ‘niceness’. Yes. Today, I’ve abandoned writing about the news, and am instead going to focus my energies on tackling two issues which I’ve found myself becoming increasingly frustrated with. Namely: Old people, and the word “nice”. But now I’ve reached a yield sign (I haven’t, they are stupid, I live on the good side of the pond); and I am unsure how to tackle these two gigantaissues – that’s what they are – should I take each one on individually, taking a break in between to gently flick myself off over my own hilarity? Or should I try a less learned approach: taking on both simultaneously, whilst making no clear points about either, and then making a pithy, yet ultimately meaningless, conclusion at the bottom? Or, hidden option 3? Yes. Hidden option 3. Think of it as a treasure hunt, except, instead of treasure, at the end of this all you feel is a general sense of distress that I’ve stolen between two and thirty minutes of your life, depending on your ability to read and process thoughts. How to go, how to do. Go soft. Good choice. Nice.

I work for a charity, which shall remain nameless (so as to decrease assumptions of published narcissism at my end, and to increase an annoying sense of respect that you’re bound to feel for someone who volunteers), and, inevitably, said (or not) charity is ‘staffed’ almost entirely by people who long ago reached their ‘best before’s’ and have wheezed their way through their expiry dates too. Now, similarly to my ‘feelings for gays’, I have nothing inherently against the older generation – except an olfactory revulsion – but the ones I work with seem to have a preconceived notion of me. Hang on, I hear you cry/whimper/not say, surely it should be the other way around? I should be expecting someone darning, gently mumbling scripture to an imaginary cat, which turns out to be a tea-cosy; someone has flipped the world upside down, I’m walking on air, it’s raining grass, and I live in a cloud (as soon they shall too). Unfortunately, this appears to be a given now. I’m loutish, boorish, uncultured, poorly raised, unpleasant, repugnant in appearance, and boy oh boy am I ungrateful. They won the war for me, you know.

Nice, I know – heralding my brilliance pre-my-parents-coitus. How very, very, very, nice of them. Depressingly, as I do fit several of those criteria, I am forced to make a banal sentiment such as: “I dislike the principle of the presumption, rather than the content.” Which, whilst true, is sickeningly cliché. So, yes, the world is upside down, you’re an imbecilic, knuckle-dragging, ingrate, who is incapable of thinking beyond your genitals. Cry not, though, for I have evidence that whilst we may all be accurately described by these horrible idiosyncrasies, that the older generation (sweeping generalisations fought with sweeping, offensive generalisations) are incapable of changing, ever, for anything. Any change that is made is made with slippers planted firmly on the linoleum, reticence seeping from their every crevice, plush-foot cramping their extremities – and here is the perfect example. Earlier I went to heat up some mashed potato – what do you think I used? A microwave oven? No. A microwave? Bully did I gee whiz! It’s the former in truth, the latter in practice. KEEP UP. This sounds feeble, doesn’t it. I don’t mind much. It bugs me.

I might start calling my pizza-oven a pizza-oven-air-fragrancer, as it does both jobs quite well (man I wish I had a pizza-oven). There are myriad other reasons to tar the older generation with a brush of loathing, but I don’t want to – because, in all honesty, I have no issue with old people, if I did, I’d use a better example than the one I choose. Nope. I have an issue with idiots. Unfortunate coincidence.

I rambled. Sorry. I will blush my way through “nice”. During the nauseatingly mundane pubescent, and subsequently adolescent, years I was repeatedly told about the banality of the word “nice”. “It’s a nothing word”, “It’s what silly people say when they don’t know what else to say”, “It’s for biddies with small vocabularies.” Little did I know, that this conspiracy to destroy the word “nice” was much bigger than the proliferation of the ‘Santa-lie’, or the ‘Tooth-fairy-travesty’.

Oh no, this was much, much worse. Here is why: some times in life, and some things in life, cannot, under any pompous verbiage, mask of lexical prowess, or vernacular manipulation, be described in a more beautifully complete way than: “that’s/it’s/you’re nice”. It fits, perfectly. Noncommittal feelings towards average looking newborn? Nice. Uninteresting result of a match you missed, in a game you don’t understand? Nice. Marrow-crushingly disappointing Christmas gift? Nice. It’s perfect. Replace the words “microwave oven” with the word “nice”. And then gently introduce the word “nice” into the brains of the 21st century Robert Cawdrey, preferably via a forcibly inserted wire into the cerebral cortex or frontal lobe. Soon it’ll start cropping up everywhere – tmesis will suddenly be a whole lot more un-nice-lievably entertaining. Word splicing: 21st century darning.