Socioquette: Ps & Qs

Social niceties? Nah, not my thing. Tactical diplomacy? Uh uh, I'm bereft of that too. Small talk? Good heavens, no please, I'm fundamentally lacking in that aspect. So what social etiquette am I good at? Why, my Ps & Qs of course, the basics, the little courtesies, I don't joke with them and that's why it rubs me off the wrong way when people take them for granted -the little foxes that spoil the vine. In this instance, it's these often overlooked courtesies that kill would-be profitable relationships.

What would it hurt and who would it kill to say please and/or thank you? Nothing and no one. Most likely thing it may hurt might be your ego, just a wee bruise at that. Like seriously people, let's not overlook these little things.

Admittedly, I may not be so good at making small talk (some refer to it as 'polite conversation') hence some busybody some ones might leave with the impression that I'm stuck up. You see, that may be true cos my tongue actually gets stuck when it comes to social interactions -making small talk. It just refuses to untie itself from my mouth -even after meeting one baba who gave me some words to chew to aid in its loosening, to no avail, e no gree work- and you'd have noticed that if you weren't busy taking offence at my supposed 'coldness'.

Where have we missed it? Who, what, where is to blame. Society? Technology? Imperialism? (No, that's far fetched), something ought to be done and fast. A reorientation's highly needed and possibly, finishing schools like we had in the Victorian era be set up again.

Please, we shouldn't forget this little courtesies that were groomed into us as children in the name of I'm a boss, I'm a supervisor, I'm the president, no. It ought not be so, it reeks of bad manners, simple. So because the other person's a persona non grata, s/he's not deserving of the basics? Let's go back to the drawing board cos this has passed be careful.

Photo Credit: Google

Tale of an Ant: The Bodstacle

Once a heavy body twice removed laid down to slumber and slept deeply. Too deeply Antu thought as he watched from a safe distance, peeping intermittently from a watcher's hole he had setup when he noticed the body lay directly across his path.

What to do, what to do he thought and then he decided. Sleep on body, for it is night when all men must sleep to rise at first dawn. Some take the deep sleep never to awake, you shall awake but in pain. At least, that’s what I think he thought because you see, I was another watcher involved in the watcher’s games. Only I was aware of my presence and watched both watcher (Antu) and watchee (sleeping bod).

The long night passed on slowly, too slow for Antu as his frequent peeps became more hurried and less discreet. He watched with growing dismay as the night skyline lightened, gold tinged by the sun’s first rays yet, there was not a movement of the muscles from the prone body. It lay there, seemingly dead to the world. “But it is dawn,” cried Antu. He always did wake up with the sun and expected the body to do likewise. The more darkness gave way, the more Antu despaired for he had really believed that all bodies arose with dawn’s first light as his grandmother had once told him. In her tales, all bodies rose with the sun.

At this point, I feel I should describe Antu. A young ant in his first stages, no different from his peers but he was much smaller. According to his grandma, he was nearly eaten by a grasshopper as a baby and fell in the struggle that ensued. As stories go however, he didn’t believe one bit of it as he saw himself as special and favored (touched if you like). This would be his first time stepping out of the Chantill, a large mound of a mansion and all at the dare of the young ‘uns.

He is lightly marked unlike the darker markings of his order, this he attributes to the ‘touch’. His head’s slightly disproportionate to his body giving him a strange look which only endeared him to the Antlies- Fantu in particular.

Ah…Fantu. Thinking of her made his fluids to juice. What would he do without her? For it was because of her he had maintained this vigil. Usually in such cases, he would have long passed over and continued his search and where there seemed to be no way, he created one for himself or if need be, put his stingers to use but not this time. He wanted, no, needed to see that bod rise of its own accord. And so he patiently or impatiently as the case may be, waited. Only when it was fully bright did he decide that he had waited long enough and so it was with fire in his fluids and a cry in his heart that he rushed towards the bodstacle and stung.

It all happened too quickly but in all these, the watcher of both had drawn his conclusions.

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