Coffee Talk #28: Memes, chairs, IKEA, and overall misanthropy

I was reminded of an old meme the other day. A picture saying Some people need a high five. In the face. With a chair. Which never failed to amuse me. The type of meme that was hot for just about a minute, was quickly overshadowed by the next one, but occasionally managed to make a reappearance. It must have been a few years by now since the last time it came to mind though. But now I realise this joke actually didn’t age that well.

Of course, the younger generations who come across it for the very first time, they’ll have a laugh about it. Quite possibly they’ll use it in threads and group chats, or in whatever their current thing is. But when when I look back at the last few years, the trend that can’t be ignored is that I continue to be less and less involved with other people. Not as a reflection of anti-social behaviour, quite the opposite actually. I’m still down with seeing friends and hanging out. But the landscape of nocturnal bar-hopping, clubbing, and concerts switched to a more family friendly setting, where we meet up at beaches, restaurants, or within the comforts of our homes. Wheel in the factor of being more careful on how I spend my time, and whom I spend that time with, and you’ve got yourself a solid misanthropic friend, who can easily dismiss his friendly demeanour for non-sugarcoated blunted realism.

The thing is, I’ve been around quite a few people who definitely deserve a chair or two in the face, and then some. In fact, I could easily come up with an extensive short-list of people who I’d deem fit for this chair-in-the-face-treatment. It would be extreme to go as far as a Yellow Pages worth of listed people, but hey, I’m not selling myself short here. I’ve been to a couple of schools, I’ve held more than a couple of jobs building up to a career, I’ve done countless of jobs during the temp-agency era, and my groups of friends were always eager to go out for a drink or two. I can safely say I’ve met people along these ways. So yeah, the short-list wouldn’t be exactly short.

All kidding, jokes, and name lists aside, I sincerely think the most notable group I could nominate right now, would be the group of politicians (party members included), who formed the new Banana Republic Government. It took them a good six months to reach this point, but hey, who’s counting right? Seeing their group picture in the media, four party leaders side-by-side, instantly gives me the caption Four cronies in cahoots. I have iterations enough to describe this gang of misfits, rest assured, and none of them speak favourable about its members.

Shortly after the elections I addressed the outcome a few times, with the thoughts that forming an actual government would be quite an undertaking. And if that point would be reached, big if, the next question is how long this government is going to last. Not a weird question to ask really, given the track record of previous formed governments in recent history. The six months it took them to get this far, I’d be surprised if they’ll make it another six. But we’ll see. I also expected Joe Biden to pass away during his first year in office, but he’s still out there.

Now back to the chairs at hand. It would mean an increased workload, as well as financial prosperity for the designated chair builder who acquires the contracts. Or a declining stock availability of the chair of choice at the nearest IKEA warehouse, when it’s executed more economically. Four cronies in cahoots, extremely eligible for a chair-in-the-face-treatment. As for the mathematic equation behind the how many chairs per face ratio, I was thinking down the line of {how many months it took to form this government} x {the amount of islamophobic tweets created} x {how many times he/she claimed refugees are the problem}. But I’m open for suggestions.