(Most people: not most people)
FOLLOWING A MINOR disagreement with his wife over breakfast, local husband Harry Smith decided to pick up some flowers on his way back from work to smoothe the troubled waters. It had been a long day and, by the time he embarked upon his homeward journey, the florists were all closed. After driving around for a while, he found a 24-hour garage shop that sold flowers and, for a princely sum, purchased the last remaining bunch, a somewhat pedestrian but pretty affair of mixed blooms. ‘Well, it’s the thought that counts,’ he told himself and, feeling good and looking forward to patching things up with his wife, Helen, he drove home.
Upon his arrival, he presented Helen with the bouquet and said ‘babe, I’m really sorry about our little spat this morning and wanted to make it up to you.’ Helen bestowed upon the flowers a withering glare fit to make both flowers and husband wilt. ‘You bought those at the garage shop, didn’t you?’ she enquired in a tone of icy contempt. ‘Look, I know it’s not a dozen fresh-cut red roses but the flower shops were all closed and that was my only option,’ said Harry, the slight quaver in his voice betraying his sudden apprehension of the imminent annihilation. In a final, futile attempt to ward off the inevitabe and justify himself, he said ‘You know, most people would be happy with a bunch of flowers of whatever kind or price.‘
‘Most people!’ exploded Helen, violently swatting Harry’s bouquet from his hands to the floor. ‘Do I look like “most people” to you? You think a bunch of cheap-ass daisies from the Caltex will make up for your bullshit? Well, maybe that would work with “most people” but it sure as fuck isn’t going to work with me,’ she yelled before giving the stricken bouquet a vicious kick and storming from the room.
Elsewhere in town, local mother Estelle Green was treating her 13-year old son, Marc, to dinner at a local restaurant. Marc, pouting and sullen, refused to look at the menu and ignored the waiter’s friendly greeting, staring fixedly out the window. ‘I don’t wanna be at this stupid restaurant and eat a stupid hamburger,’ he whined. ‘I wanna be at home playing Call of Duty. All my friends are playing Call of Duty but I’m here with my stupid mother. Why can’t you make me a hamburger at home?’ the truculent teenager demanded to know. ‘Well,’ said Estelle, ‘for one thing, you’ve been spending way too much time playing video games and besides, most people would appreciate being taken out for a nice supper.’
‘Well I’m not “most people”!’ squalled Marc, slamming the table in petulant rage. ‘I’m me, mom, me. Why can’t you just accept me for who I am and stop forcing me to do things I don’t want to do. What is this, Nazi Germany?’ Although familiar with her son’s tantrums, Estelle was nevertheless taken aback by the hostility of his tone. ‘You know what Marc, most sons don’t speak to their mothers like that,’ she said. ‘Well, I’m not “most sons”, am I?’ spat Marc. ‘I am me, my own person. An individual. Can you even comprehend that? You don’t own me. I’m not your pet. Why can’t you get that into your stupid fucking head?’
The agonised scream of a man in intense pain ripped through the quiet air of the community clinic. ‘Jesus Christ woman, why don’t you just use a fucking chainsaw if you’re so determined to rip off my arm?’ the man fumed at the nurse administering his Covid booster shot as he frantically rubbed the barely visible puncture wound.
‘Not only do I have to subject myself to the government and Big Pharma sticking their needle in my flesh so Bill Gates can mind-control me, but you’re like a sadist with a fucking samurai sword,’ he grizzled. The nurse rolled her eyes. ‘You know sir, most people would appreciate the fact that their country is vaccinating them free of charge against one of the greatest global medical threats our species has ever faced.’ ‘Well “most people” aren’t aware they’re taking their lives into their hands by allowing their physical integrity to be trodden underfoot while they’re being treated like lab-rats being given improvised deat bat DNA against a plague cooked up by the Chinese to destabilise the geopolitical order, are they?’ he fumed.
At the time of going to press, the same man was engaged in a vehement diatribe against a visibly stunned waitress at a nearbly fast-food establishment after his enquiry as to ‘what’s good here?’ yielded her response of ‘well sir, most people come here for our famous bacon-and-cheese burger.’
