I am a literalist.
I don’t mean that in a wishy-washy sense. I don’t do wishy-washy. I don’t do figurative.
I do literal.
O.K., one time I did try to do simile. But it was like a person who is really bad at doing simile trying to do simile.
Metaphor is completely out of the question.
Small Talk can be tricky. How am I? You’d rather not know.
Big Talk is no picnic, either. (It’s Big Talk, whereas a picnic is an outdoor activity often involving finger food and a rug.)
Needless to say, I’m a terrible flirt.
My loins yearn for you. That sounds awful. Is there a cream for that?
My heart is on fire. Shall I call for an ambulance or a fire truck?
I do find some solace in lists, but only strictly quantitative ones.
The 10 best movies of all time? You can’t be serious.
A list of 10 films. Now we’re talking.
Obviously, euphemism is impossible, which wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t a professional obituary writer.
You know how it goes.
John Doe, born [date], died [date]. No problems yet.
Husband to [name], father to [name]. All true so far.
A friend to all he met. A man of boundless patience who blah-blah-blah. You see the issue?
Yes, this career will be the death of me.
Here, I am being ironic. You can be ironic while still being literal, and there is plenty of evidence at this point showing that our jobs are in fact killing us.
But they also give life. For example: I met my wife at work.
My loins yearn for you. That sounds awful. Is there a cream for that?
One Friday, after a particularly death-filled week, she asked if I wanted to accompany her to a nearby bar, to “kill a few more Manhattanites.”
Forgetting that this was company slang for “write a few obits,” I turned down her offer, walked straight back to my cubicle, and called the police.
Later, down the station, as she was being uncuffed, I jokingly said, “We’ll tell our kids about this one day.”
Well, then, it was settled. I had never wanted kids, but now I’d said it.
She was a good sport—is a good sport—and we’re still together all these years later.
We did eventually tell our kids about that night at the police station.
They replied, “So?”
Well, marriage has changed me. Shaved away some of the spikes.
I am no longer so militant in my views toward literalism. I still avoid metaphors like the plague, but I do permit myself the occasional simile.
And when my wife comes into the bathroom while I’m showering and says something playful like “Honey, you’ve got the body of a man half your age,” I don’t chastise her.
I accept her compliment and respond as best I know how.
“Sweetheart, you have a body, too.”
Simon Webster is an Australia-based journalist
