Monday, April 2, 2012

Just when you think there's no one crazier than me...

I spend like ninety percent of my time imagining horrific outcomes for things I consider doing. 

For instance, when I go up a ladder at work to take down an oboe, I imagine all of the things that could possibly happen while I'm up on that ladder. Someone sneaking up behind me, someone dropping a book loudly behind me, somebody screaming suddenly, the ladder buckling, somebody knocking the ladder over on purpose, me reaching too far for the oboe...

All of these different scenarios all feature the end result: me falling off the ladder and breaking my neck which either leads to my tragic death or puts me in a wheelchair as a paraplegic for the rest of my presumably long life.

I constantly think about all of the horrible things that can result from whatever simple task it is that I am doing. My god, using the hole puncher I imagine chopping off part of my finger and getting a serious gangrene infection and dying a slow, agonizing death or losing my finger and living with a lifelong knowledge that my hands will never play a flute again.

It's freaking horrifying.

It's a damned depressing way to go through life, too. My days are filled with horrors and fears and second thoughts. When I decide to do something, half the time I change my mind simply because the worst case scenario my mind creates is so terrifying I become incapable of doing it myself. Simple things like rearranging instrument displays become games of direct and correct as I instruct other people (usually Lord Darminick, formerly Denominator) on how I want things done. It would save time, energy, and frustration if I would just hop up and do it myself, but I could fall with a tenor sax in my hand and the neck could stab through my skin when I hit and sever my jugular. I'd bleed to death in seconds: death my tenor sax. Well, the obituary would be interesting.

It's just frustrating. Just once I'd like to be able to do something, anything, without considering the fifty million ways I'm likely to die while doing the things that must get done. 

But then I talked to a man today who has problems way worse than mine.

Because, you know, he insists on buying a brand new trumpet that has never been played. By anyone. Ever. 

And that is literally impossible. Because no manufacturer, no matter who you are or what you say, will release an instrument from their factory without giving it a play test. It will never happen. They have to test the instruments along each stage of the process to make sure it works. There will always be at least ONE PERSON who has played an instrument before you.

It's just the way it works.

So he wants to pay sixty dollars MORE to have a brand new instrument chemically cleaned when he comes to buy it. Just to make sure there are no germs.

And buddy...you have got to be seriously fucked up if you are afraid the germs are coming to get you from a trumpet that had someone put air through it six weeks ago for five seconds.

11 comments:

  1. Thee other night I went to the movies and before the movie started I was thinking about all the perple leaving the show before that one and the pandemonium in the parking-lot and the possibility of someone hitting my car. Finally, I had to tell myself that it was pointless to worry about something like that until it happened.

    As for germs, I never understand why people are so obsessed with them. In my line of workZ I worry much more about getting dangerous chemicals on my hands, and I wash my hands constantly at work. If you get someone's germs on you, most likely you'll just catch a mild cold. The wrong chemicals could kill you on the spot.

    Something else to think about :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Do you work in a lab that develops powerful chemicals for war? Are you an evil scientist? Did you have a role in Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog?

      Delete
  2. I used to think I was a pretty strange person myself, with some twisted kinks and vexing phobias. I often wondered if they weren't just waiting around the next corner with a butterfly net to take me away to the nut hatch.

    Then I got on the internet and discovered that there are people out there who are way more screwed up than I am and it made me feel a little better. My own phobias are still there but I can still live a fairly normal and happy life. I don't let them rule me.

    Concentrate on what you are doing rather than what might happen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm quite happy to let them rule me. You're talking to the girl who runs away from flamingos even though the last case of a flamingo attacking a human was...well, never. I've never heard of it. But there you have it. It's impossible.

      Delete
    2. Well, there was that one cannibal flamingo outbreak back in '02, but they pretty much hushed that one up. It is best to be cautious around those sneaky pink swine...

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  3. No worries. I'm crazy too. I often picture the horrible things that could happen in a given situation. Even if the situation in question is OVER WITH, I still go on imagining all of the ways it could have gone wrong. I'm so paranoid, it will be a miracle if either of my kids turn out normal...

    But even at that level of crazy, I still think that trumpet guy is a loon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Normal is subjective.

      I do that, too! You think of all the ways you're lucky you didn't have to experience!

      yeah...crazy.

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  4. It seems to me that a person that concerned about germs should not be ordering an instrument with a spit valve.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Ick, tell me about it.

      But I think it's like the way I am with a mess in my apartment: I'm incapable of tolerating a mess that I did not make, so perhaps he is only incapable of handling germs that are from other people. (Although germs can't live forever on nothing.)

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  5. Let your customer know that wind instruments probably aren't his best choice. I'll sell him a finely tuned set of wooden blocks made from only the best cheap 2x4's and dipped in hand sanitizer for a very reasonable price.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm sure that he'd pay extra for the dipped in hand sanitizer part.

      Delete

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