written and posted by members of Lancashire Dead Good Poets' Society

Saturday 15 October 2011

Counting to Ten

06:29:00 Posted by Ashley Lister 9 comments

By Ashley Lister

1. People tell me I’m a laid back sort of person. They assure me I have infinite resources of patience. It’s a comment that invariably surprises me because I don’t think I’m a particularly patient person. I figure everyone in the world is sufficiently milquetoast to tolerate the insurmountable quantities of s**t which I endure on a daily basis without complaint. And I believe we’re all concealing the same levels of seething volcanic rage beneath the façade of our calm and benign exteriors.

2. Counting to ten helps.

3. If I get a bad review, with some know-f**k-all on Amazon deciding to give one of my titles a one-star rating (Am givin this bok onestar bcos Amazoon won’t lemme give nostars an it dinnot ha nopictures 4 me too color) I take it on the chin and figure everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. Even if the opinion-writer is a know-nothing-dimwit. And I count: one… two… three…

4. If I’m driving and the population of Blackpool all want to play the same practical joke of let’s-pretend-Ashley’s-car-is-invisible, I grin along with the gag and do the sort of fancy footwork on the brake pedal that would make Michael Jackson green with envy*. And I count: one… two… three…

5. If I’m at a poetry event, and a joker in the audience decides to speak over the punchline to one of my verses – a punchline that I worked on for weeks prior to the event – I shrug and figure that freedom of speech is a double-edged sword. And I tell myself that the person speaking over the line probably saved me the embarrassment of having to explain an obscure genital reference. Or they likely saved me from having to apologise for the offence the reference caused. And I count: one… two… three…

6. I don’t really have infinite resources of patience. Mention Tories to me and it’s like poking an angry bear in the balls with an electric cattle prod. I roar. I express barely articulate rage and fury. Obviously I don’t say, “Ouch, my ursine testicles.” But otherwise the symptoms are identical.

7. And I’ve taken to using my thinly concealed anger to help express passion through my poetry. This is how I ended up with my love song to David Cam-Moron last week at the poetry event. I channelled my fury at the current political situation into twenty lines of angry-voter.

8. Is it fair for me to list patience as a resource here if I don’t have any? Do I always count as high as ten? What happens if the count gets interrupted? Do I ever lose my patience for trifling or trivial matters? I don’t know. Why are you asking me these questions? I’d got as far as eight in my count and now I’m going to have to start again because some stupid twunt has asked a stupid f***ing question.

9. One… two… three…

10. Of course, the question I always ask is: if you’re still angry after you’ve reached a count of ten, are you then allowed to punch the person who pissed you off in the first place? Answers in the comments boxes below please.

* Given that he’s dead, if he has any consciousness at all, it’s likely that Michael Jackson is currently envious of anyone’s footwork. And chances are he’s already turned green.

9 comments:

Lara Clayton said...

Another great post Ash. I particularly liked point number 4 - people in Blackpool seem to play this practical joke on me as well.

And in answer to whether you can punch someone, well, I don't normally condone violence but I'd say...

Ashley Lister said...

Point No. 4 is the one I should most like to see associated with the reintroduction of the death penalty.

Not that I'm trying to be excessive. But I think it sets a precedent.

And that's one vote allowing me to punch people. I worried I'd had too much coffee when I wrote this :-)

Ash

Lindsay said...

It ate my comment. Anyone who can look at a bibliography with pictures in in without even so much as calling them a f*ckwit is patient in my eyes :)

Ashley Lister said...

I'd forgotten about that! "Which method of referencing did you use? Harvard, Oxford, MLA, or window-licker?"

Thanks for reminding me of the chuckle :-)

Ash

Damp incendiary device said...

I didn't know you could count to ten. You learn something new...

My answer is that if you get to ten (really? Are you sure you're not missing a couple of number out?) and still be angry it probably means you need to switch to decaf :P

Anonymous said...

I learnt to get to six from reading/listening to your slam poem. The other four is just me bragging.

#decafisforwimps.

Anonymous said...

Advice for number: obtain a large vehicle (a tractor or JCB would suffice) and challenge the blind drivers to a game of dodgems. It is fallacy that size doesn't matter.
As for counting, all that does is give you more time to get mad at the cretins. Are darts illegal weapons?

Ashley Lister said...

A JCB? If they didn't always come in yellow I'd be tempted by that idea.

Ash

Anonymous said...

I have good news for you - Bleu Blanc, a leading French rental company has invested in a fleet of 20 new JCB Loadall telescopic handlers – all painted in their striking blue and white corporate livery.