Day 8, Friday: Absolutely nothing happens

Someone with sesquipedalian tendencies is given to using long words. I’ve always had very mixed feelings about the excessive use of big words. Take the word “superfluous,” which is, in and of itself superfluous. One could just say “extra” but it feels so good to say “superfluous.” On the other hand, however, it is far more effective to say “what smells like shit?” rather than “what is that miasma?” Note that the former conveys the speaker’s message, and eliminates the risk of confusion. One should always remember that, in using an obscure or fancy appropriately-used-in-the-correct-context word, you may get an elated feeling of superior intelligence, and more “alternative” people with little-5-points glasses may want to hang out with you, but you really just look like an ass.

I once had a college Speech professor who was very proud of himself and all the big words he knew. Instead of telling us that something we were about to hear was useful information, he’d say it was chrestomathic. And of course, we’d all miss the words of wisdom he was about to impart because, either (1) we were still trying to figure out what chrestomathic meant, or (2) we’d already stopped listening, since we knew we didn’t stand a chance of figuring out what the hell he was talking about anyways. He was, as he might say, given to altiloquence*.

As much as I would like to boast of my being far too sophisticated to be played by his pedantry, it is only very many years later that I can admit to all this. Like everyone else who took the class, he’d managed to pull the wool of the Emperor’s New Clothes over my eyes too. We’d all smile and nod our heads, like we totally got what he was talking about, since we knew everyone got a B anyways, and none of us wanted to be the one to admit that she didn’t have an F-ing clue what Professor X was saying. Convinced by his gobbledygook jibber-jabber that we were all much better orators, every one of us gave Professor X highest marks available on his performance survey, all the while having been deprived of any effective education on the subject.

So, what I’m trying to say here, is that I could go to great lengths, using colorful language to describe a day that could accurately summed up using one word, but that would be unnecessary. At the risk of sounding average, my day was LAME.

I ate peas for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In between those meals, I ate some chocolate. I hate peas. I love steak.

*Pompous language