Long ago I remember a bank holiday when one of the family came up with the idea that we should write rules – not necessarily polite ones – for other people. It got us through quite a few of those breaks when we weren’t either quarrelling or trying to carry on working. Some of them still seem useful.
I remember one such saying: “Take a deep breath before saying anything harsh – to enable you to perfect the wording.” The elderly were advised not to say: “I’m just a silly old woman” since some of the young are fool enough to believe them. And in the pattern of the Red Queen believing three impossible things before breakfast, one should try to improve one modern invention a week.
We asserted that one should remember that children and zip fasteners do not respond to force, and it was suggested that a good way to avoid being shamed by others’ precocious children was lowering one’s own children’s ages. Rules for demolishing Professor X included suggesting that his brand-new theory “revises the old idea that…” Alternatively, get him off his own ground. If he’s right about the habits of apes, one should switch to the question of the cages they are kept in. If he is dead right in every way, you can jeer at his earnestness.
Perhaps the way to address these bank holiday breaks, in which one is suddenly supposed to be extra happy and rested, is to not take any of it too seriously – and to remember that getting back to your normal habits will probably remind you how pleasant your ordinary familiar life is. With any luck it is one in which you don’t need do all sorts of silly things to make sure you’re having what’s thought to be a pleasure.
What do you think? Have your say below
