How to make do when confronted with a gorilla

Posted by admin on Jan 13, 2010 in Blog, Featured | 3 comments

Today I avoided speaking words with an ’s’ sound.

I discovered that I use ’s’ all the time, not in small part to my Canadian habit of sandwiching any sentence with ‘please’ or ’sorry’.

So, substituting ‘thank you’ for ’sorry’ (which I have to admit, did give me an appealing upper-crust Euro affectation), I continued about my daily business, all without an ’s’ sound.

As is wont to happen, my mind wandered. Buying a litre of milk and some sweet buns are one thing – but what if I were in a situation that had something big at stake? What if I were, say, two metres away from an enormous silverback that would rip me to cheese grater-like shreds if I made an ’s’ sound?

Right. Maybe this would be one of those few occasions where I should keep my trap shut. Knowing me, this would not be possible.

So here I am, wondering if a friendly smile would make me look less threatening to the aforementioned gorilla, who, by the way, hasn’t eaten in quite awhile and got woken up before his alarm this morning by the trash men. I look towards my companion – Bob, the Gorilla Whisperer, and ask:

OK to turn up both corner of my mouth?

In this context, it doesn’t even feel silly to say this. Bob knows exactly what I mean. It even sounds a little poetic, fulfills my no ’s’ sound limitation.

Having not the tools I usually have at my disposal (my beloved ’s’ sound), I manage to do what I want to anyways and even am a little pleased with the results.

Try the one-hand-behind-your-back approach. If nothing else, you’ll at least have something to put in your blog.

 Go to How to make do when confronted with a gorilla