One must never argue with stupidity
WHEN you leave the house and spot a fresh steamy dog pie, do you stop and ask it, ‘How did you get here and why do you smell so bad?’
You don’t because interacting with a turd means you’re certifiably insane and if you bothered to read this column, you’re not.
Yet whenever I go on social media, I see folks who are quite bright judging by the discerning look in their eyes as seen on their profile pictures, trying to talk sense into a last Sunday’s leftover bean stew recycled by a basset hound with irritable bowel syndrome.
Yes, in most cases you can see in someone’s face, the eyes especially, if they are capable of some form of constructive reasoning or are as thick as two short planks.
So, whether a post is about who stole whose land, the colour of your mother’s breyani, or the chemical castration of serial deadbeat fathers, just keep on scrolling and thus save yourself the futility of reasoning with something that attracts flies.
That, dear readers, is my advice to you this week – there are some things and people in life you cannot change - just ignore them and give them a wide berth as if they are Woofles’ byproduct.
That’s my tip of the week for you, and I sincerely hope you find it useful next time you’re trying to navigate the vast sewer system that is social media, without stepping on some snowflake’s toes in the smelly process.
Seeing as we’re on the topic of people not seeing eye to eye, let’s stick with it.
If there’s one thing in life that’s a given, it is that there are as many opinions as there are people on this planet.
Really, the chances of coming across someone who sees things even remotely like you do, is about the same as discovering intelligent life in the Houses of Parliament.
Even twins seldom share the same views and here I would like to use as an example of severe indifference infused with spectacular stupidity, my two uncles on mother’s side.
Elmo and Hennie are twins, born five minutes apart, but from judging their shrewdness, those five minutes were quite critical.
Both farmers, Elmo was a Hilux man and Hennie an Isuzu fanatic, and each believes his bakkie is superior.
On one particular Saturday back in 1985 and half a case of beer into the afternoon, the two again started arguing over whose bakkie would outperform whose.
It eventually escalated into a tugof-war exercise with Elmo’s Hilux tied to Hennie’s Isuzu, a 10m-long chain connecting the two vehicles.
My father, beer in hand, was to be the referee, with myself the linesman, making sure I was very, very far away from the line that either of the vehicles might take should things get a bit precarious.
Something I suspected was inevitable.
What followed was some high diesel engine revving and a lot of dust, followed by the sound of metal wishing metal farewell, glass exploding and the type of yelp a border collie makes when a Wendy house almost falls on it.
Before you could get a clear picture of the tragedy that occurred, I heard my father’s voice somewhere inside the dust cloud, ‘O my soul…’
The Hilux parted with the bits of it that were connected to the chain, with the result that the Isuzu shot forward and into the Wendy house which in turn came down on the dog.
After seeing the border collie squatting on the lawn in one piece and healthy, my father and I left Elmo and Hennie to debate whether it was the Hilux’s ‘terrible chassis’ or the Isuzu’s ‘poor brakes’ which destroyed the Wendy house, and went home.