7: You are ever courageous!

I visit you today and ask you how long you intend to be a recluse.

“At least another five minutes,” you reply grouchily. You have already seriously considered shaving your head and wearing monk robes, whatever those may look like, and becoming a hermit, which as you understand it is a form of crab. Actually, the prospect of being a crab-monk is very exciting to you.

“Is there nothing I can do to convince you to return to civilization?” I ask.

“Make it more civilized,” you scowl.

“All by myself?” I gasp, dismayed. I can turn at least 95% of the world with ease, but ALL of it? You are asking quite a lot!

“I cannot go back outside,” you say seriously. “I have egg on my face.”

“I thought you had mud on your ass,” I reply.

“THAT WAS YESTERDAY,” you growl. “TODAY I DROPPED EGGS.”

I am momentarily concerned as to where you got the eggs.

“So you refuse to go outside ever again?” I ask doubtfully.

“That’s right,” you pout, sketching out potential costumes for your newfound crab-monk lifestyle.

“Very well,” I say. “I will just go to get [drink=select=iced coffee] all by myself.”

“Did you say [iced coffee]?!” you gasp. You toss your plans to the floor. You were getting very overwhelmed as to how to make a crab-monk costume. It would require a lot of sewing and bits of sea creatures, and you’re not sure you would look very nice. Oh, you. Always so self-conscious.

“Are you choosing another costume?” I ask.

“I’m choosing LIFE!” you say, beaming, and you put on a fresh pair of pyjamas. “LET’S GO OUT!”

*

After you change a few more times and settle into your usual outside clothes, we go out and get [iced coffee]. As you drink this down, you contemplate damage control.

“Not required,” I say. “Everyone has amnesia.”

You are very excited. “Really?!” you say hopefully.

“Yes, on that soap opera I was watching with your parents while we were waiting for you to come back outside.”

“My parents?!” you gasp. “How do you know my parents?!”

“I know everything,” I chuckle, hiding the exam I once got a C- on. I don’t know why I carry it around. It becomes very incriminating at times like these. And it says Borty Barrens on it. Who the heck is Borty Barrens? How have I been carrying around a poorly done exam that is not even mine for all these years? I face a temporary internal crisis as I contemplate all I have done in my life. You ignore me as you suck up [crushed ice] through a straw.

“Well, now that I’m back out, I suppose there are an endless source of things to do. I suppose I should catch up with life.”

“You were only a recluse for one day,” I inform you. “Not even a full day. Technically, you could not in any way be described as a recluse.”

“Technicalities,” you chuckle. You are so glad you learned that word. You can use it to dismiss any argument.

I wonder if this is true. “Even: You have failed your schooling and must start over.”

“Technicalities,” you sneer, printing out your own diploma.

I try, “Even: Your beloved pet [animal=select=iguana] has died.”

“Technicalities,” you repeat, taking Sergeant Lizzy to the taxidermist. He will be back in his cage as good as new.

I say, “Even: You are pregnant. Yes, you sir/ma’am.”

“Technicalities!” you laugh, no longer being pregnant. Amazing! Indeed, you are quite creative.

“It’s important to be positive,” you nod.

“What about receiving a positive diagnosis of a disease?”

“Technicalities,” you repeat, assuming a positive diagnosis means good news. It does not.

I look for more ways to stump you. Surely there are arguments you simply cannot dismiss! Don’t you think?

“Alls I thinks,” you say, reverting to slang, “Is thats I’ve gots somes lifes to lives. And some s’s to remove froms my sentences…s.”

Now that you have given me a grammar headache, you are able to prance off and form… a bucket list?

“I have formed a list of buckets I want to own before I die,” you say. “A red one… and a metal one. And that is all.”

“I’m not sure that is what a bucket list is,” I say.

“Technicalities,” you say.