I said the next time I saw a parent complaining about parenting that I would bully them. At play group I saw just that and I did not bully him. Pushover, me. What’s strange is that the guy, a full-time dad of a 2 year old and 6.5 week old, seemed really good at it. He was patient and kind and knew his kids very well and clearly loved them. But when things would come up in conversation, it was full of quippy little complaints about how shitty it is to have to deal with these damned kids. An attitude not at all reflected by his behavior, at least not there, in public. Maybe he sucks at home and just farts around on his phone. I don’t know. I hope not.

Truthfully I think he just kind of spoke in half-baked idioms and pre-internet memes.

Abby bringing up her pregnancy evoked some trite comment about not bringing it up no matter what (one would have to be a witch or a farmer to notice Abby’s pregnancy this early).

The sharing of snacks brought similar comments about pickiness nowhere on display by any of the children.

Discussions of work were met with the same familiar rambling of a mental patient or an alien.

Maybe he was just autistic,

Maybe he’s just really tired from the 7 week old.

Certain brain injuries put people into an endless loop of canned responses. They fall back and forth into the same observations and quips. It brings into question how free we are in our observation and communication. We all talk in canned memes, rare indeed is the capacity to think about the actual meat of a thought.

What’s an individual word but a hyper-meme?