"The theme of this quiz is the World Cup," said the question master. The room sighed with disappointment. My team slumped their shoulders and looked down at the table.
"It might not be that bad," I said. I stopped short of telling them that (by a streak of magnificent fortune) I had actually been revising world cup statistics - I thought that might come across as a little pretentious. As it was, we needn't have worried - there was very little sports stuff in it in the end. Plus, it looks like we might have won it anyway, without or without me playing the role of Statto.
It's not wrong to describe the funeral as incredible. It was so life-affirmingly good it almost doesn't deserve to be called a funeral at all - much more of a celebration of the way one beautiful life touched so many others. Tony's family stood side-by-side, stretching out across the church through four generations of creativity, spirituality, godliness, passion and love. I was astounded, challenged, moved and drawn - I hope I can leave that kind of legacy when I leave these shores, I thought to myself.
I stared at my shiny black shoes. I only seem to wear them for matches and dispatches. I don't know how much legacy you can leave without either of those things. One day, I whispered.
I'm always staring at shoes. Way back in the old days, when prayer meetings were circular and quiet, I used to scan round the room and try to deduce information from people's footwear - like a member of Freeman Hardy & Sherlock. I know now that it's probably because I'm an INFP. According to the world of Myers-Briggs, I fit the profile of an introvert intuitive with a feeling rather than thinking brain and a sense of warm-hearted adventure rather than cool-headed preplanning.
When most of the other engineers ended up at the other end of the room, I started to wonder whether it was OK to be a bit different. I figured it was. It's the differences that make life so interesting.
And that brings me to the awkwardness of the person who wasn't listening. I was tempted to describe the whole conversation, but it would break a blogging rule and I don't want to fall into the trap of sniping them from long-distance. In the end, it was about words: I couldn't get this person to understand that we were using the same word very differently and there was nothing I could do to explain it.
It happens sometimes with words like 'option'. I might think that a set of options includes everything that is physically possible, whereas you could describe 'options' as only the choices you consider to be viable. You see the problem? As soon as you rule something that's possible out, it ceases to be an option for you, but it's very much still an option for me.
I let it go in the end. Sometimes it's better to lose an argument. I was a bit annoyed though.
The strangeness doesn't stop here, on a stuffy Wednesday night! Oh no. It's the Calcot Brazilliant Night tomorrow! Then on Friday, I've got to go to an organised-fun work do, followed by a less-organised-fun leaving do. From filling out the Card of Many Signatures to the delicate art of navigating-through-a-crowded-pub-to-say-something-touching-and-appropriate-to-a-person-you'll-never-see-again-but-who-is-also-rather-inconveniently-hammered.. the process of surviving a leaving do is tricky.
A strange week, indeed.
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