The Continuation of Waiting

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 45580

Fred once had an old uncle who dressed like a nun (or was it a nun who dressed like an uncle?) and stunk of axle grease who said that a wait uncompleted was a wait wasted. So Fred was determined to wait until Something Happened.

In order to pass the time at the same speed as it would otherwise have passed, Fred began to count the hairs on the back of his hand.

There were four. Interesting.

Fred had hoped that after so much practice he would finally have got the hang of waiting and that by now he would find it somewhat easier than he had when he had first started (like learning to ride a bicycle, for example); however in this hope he had been disappointed. He found it no easier now to wait than he had when he had started waiting; if anything, it had become more difficult. He was now finding it very difficult indeed to wait and, on occasion, had caught himself on the point of not waiting. Matters continued to deteriorate (a common theme), and at some point Fred began to realise that he had in fact, for a few moments, not been waiting at all. Also, his trousers had slipped halfways down his legs. Strange, especially as he had remained seated as he had done since he entered the waiting room.

The mind boggles.

What was making it more difficult to wait however was not a general sense of agitation, or boredom, or frustration, or indeed that finest of all Man's sentiments which sets him apart from the bird and the beast and the fish and the priest, namely ennui.

Fred's reason for finding it more difficult to wait was quite specific, namely

  1. something had occurred which, it could reasonably be surmised, was the eventuality for which he had been waiting
  2. someone, or something was trying, ever so subtly, to distract him
  3. a wooden splinter from the chair had pierced his buttocks and entered his body, possibly fatally

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Eric Kantona

12/22/2005 3:01:54 AM

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