Bernard's Pick (More)
I am studying for my upcoming exams (that’s short for “examinations,” if you don’t know), something I’d been doing since receiving that ever so unpleasant shock of finding out that my exams actually were, in fact, upcoming. Every now and then, I fall into a state of groggy lethargy when nothing can enter my magnificently shaped head. Sometimes, I look at that spider who lives on the wall next to my study place, who’s been growing steadily and frighteningly large over the past week. It’s one of those freaky googly-eyed spiders that must be seen to believed. But now, I find myself in a state of renewed energy that makes me want to try out those two experiments in my Psychology text book, presented under that subtitle of Try This Yourself!
Try This Yourself!
1. What you require for this experiment is an orange peel and a friend. Hold the peel at about five or six inches from his/her eye and squeeze it into the eye. What do you notice?
2. Ask your friend to observe you and then stick your tongue out towards him. How will your friend interpret it? Then you clap your hands and ask for his interpretation. What is his/her reaction?
Seeing as these two experiments consist of nothing more than doing some goofy crap to my friend, and an orange peel, I say “What the hell!” and, using my newly discovered energy, decide to go out there and perform the experiments. The only difficult part is deciding between a ‘he’ friend and a ’she’ friend, a conundrum that solves itself quickly enough when I realize that I have no ’she’ friends. Even if I did, squeezing an orange peel into her eye would certainly leave me bereft of ’she’ friends all over again. (Note to self: get some ’she’ friends. A ‘he’ friend tells me he’s been doing naughty things with all his ’she’ friends. Even as naughty as banging basketballs over each other’s heads. Yummy.) I first get the materials ready for my little experiments. Taking an orange from the fruit basket, I peel it and eat it. Then, feeling slightly ill, I realize that in my unhinged enthusiasm, I have eaten the orange peel and that the naked orange in my hand. Damn, I hate it when that happens. I quickly gobble the naked orange, take another one, peel and eat that orange, and stuff the peel into my pocket.
Having the peel ready, I decide that I should do this experiment ‘properly’, by filling the details into my chemistry laboratory journal from last year, which I find to be completely unused. Not surprising, considering that when we supposed to be filling up the journal, we were actually doing other things such as burning our eyebrows with Bunsen burners, rubbing potassium permanganate on the girl’s cheeks, and jokingly pouring acidic liquids down unsuspecting classmates’ pants. No wonder I don’t have any ’she’ friends. After that, I dial the phone number of a randomly selected friend and, screaming like a banshee, I tell him to come over as quickly as possible. Five minutes later, he arrives, huffing and puffing, and finds me standing motionless at the door. When he is exactly five or six inches away from me, I point to my right and say, “Look, a purple elephant!” to divert his attention so I can go on with the experiment with no constraints. Satisfied with the response, I quickly shove my hands into my pockets, extract the orange peels, and take aim. As it isn’t mention exactly how much I should squeeze into my friend’s eyes, I squeeze extremely generously and liberally straight into his eyes. Following the instructions of the experiment, I take an objective stance and observe very carefully as he first screams in incoherent agony and then proceeds to spill his container of expletives all over me, but I remain unaffected, as any interference by me would only come in the way of the objectivity. When he is through screaming and just stands there in baffled rage, I proceed to the next experiment and stick my tongue out at him. This, I’m quick to notice, makes him come forward, and using his strength, he throws me to the floor and begins to strangle me. Sticking to the next stage of the experiment, I try to clap my hands. This proves to be a difficult task as his humungous head comes in the way, and I instead end up slapping both sides of his head repeatedly. It is only then that he gets to his feet, kicks me in the groin and goes away, crying tears of shock and rage, and swearing to curse my name till the day he dies.
Immensely satisfied with my great progress, I jot down the results of my experiments into the journal, and then I open up my psychology textbook to compare my results with the ones in the book. For the first experiment it says, “Your friend should exhibit an involuntary eyeblink reflex.” I re-read my result for the first experiment, which says, “Friend exhibited the use of loud screaming, 17 F-words, countless scatological references and a few indecent gestures. Plus, I may no longer have a friend.” Slightly perplexed by the discrepancy, I look at the result of the second experiment in the textbook, which simply says, “Your friend’s interpretation of these acts may be completely different from that of a Chinese.” For a while, I compare this with my results, which say, “Strangulation of the experimenter and severe, perhaps irreversible, damage to said experimenter’s gonads, both done by friend. Plus, now positive that I no longer have a friend.”
I continue to contemplate the astonishing incongruity of the desired results and my derived results. After five minutes of doing so, I give my textbook a severe whupping and throw it out the window where it belongs.
Now I am off to find myself some ’she’ friends. That skanky-looking one whose cheeks I painted purple with potassium permanganate might be a good bet, I think.