What do you take me for: some kind of commoner? There are
certain things that are beneath me and that I simply will not deign to do.
At a local marketplace recently, I paid for my purchases
(which included vegetable oil, bananas and Butterfingers) but developed a
serious care of the butterfingers and dropped several silver and copper coins
on the floor. The checkout maiden pointed out my error and inquired whether I
would stoop to retrieve my change.
Madam, I chortle at your suggestion. I shall not exert my
kneecaps by bending them and I shall certainly not dirty my dainty fingertips
by brushing the floor. Heaven forfend. The coins are simply not worth my
efforts at retrieval. Were it a few $100 bills or some spare Krugerrands, I
might consider picking them off the floor (or at least delegating the duty to
someone else).
But for spare change? It is to laugh. I am not one of the
hoi polloi, grubbing for petty cash. Leave it that some wretch in some dire
workhouse might discover it.
Furthermore, you must know that I simply will not turn my
head to see something. I can hardly strain my neck so everything presented to
me must be in my immediate field of vision or it cannot expect to be scene.
You cannot imagine how many times I’ve been seated at an
inaugural ball or coronation and been expected to whip my head around or, God
forbid, move my chair like some common gutter trash, just because the
presentation is going on behind me. The indignity is staggering. If you simply
must present something behind my back, like a sunset or a rare bird, do not
expect me to view it.
I mean, honestly. Turning around? How dreadfully
common.
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