Twenty everyday jobs worse than being retired (with reasons):
Horticulturalist. Bending.
Member of royal household. Obsequiousness.
Farm labourer. Hours, pay, future.
Pimp. Hell’s certainty.
London estate agent. Hell’s uncertainty
Passport inspector. Despair’s herald.
Brain surgeon. Odds against getting it right.
Catwalk model. Vacuity.
Bank clerk. Counting the notes; mis-counting the notes.
Shelf stacker. Supermarket customers.
Grave-digger. Six feet is a long way down.
UK language teacher. Futility,
Tyre fitter. Smell of rubber.
Hereford restaurant waiter. Size, or absence, of tips.
Palm reader. Who’s doing yours?
Barman. Wit of drunks.
Social service worker. Ever perceived as being wrong.
Prime minister. Transience.
F1 racer. Office space.
Deity. Believers’ demands.
Ten much rarer occupations better than being retired (with reasons)
Poet. Daily unreality.
Singing student. Self-hypnosis.
Fish-and-chip shop owner. Dispensing good value
Computer repairman. Prestidigitation.
Radio actor. Faces cease to matter
Manicurist. Faces cease to matter.
Asparagus grower. Delight on tap.
Train driver. Remoteness, free travel.
Political columnist. Making fiction work.
Being Stephanie Flanders. God loves me.
These amusing judgments remind me of Ambrose Bierce's "The Devil's Dictionary," and of certain definitions in Samuel Johnson's Dictionary.
ReplyDelete(In case you were wondering--I expect not, though--I am back from yet another trip. And have the desire to stay home!)
Marly: For a decade or so I owned Bierce's dictionary, now it seems to have disappeared. How can that be? One doesn't mislay dictionaries. Alas ownership didn't correspond with the most appropriate period of my life: the first two or three years of journalism (my mid-teens) when I strove hard to be the world's greatest cynic. I felt it went with the territory.
ReplyDeleteYou've tempted me into a Bierce parody. Journalist: Soi-disant writer believing only in disbelief.
Seeking to paddle my own canoe with this post I sought ultra-condensed definitions. The sense of several meanings has suffered accordingly.
Ah, I think I'm ready to retire. But where on your list is 'brewster' lieber Robbie? Or perhaps, 'Sauerkraut braiser'?
ReplyDeleteRW(zS): This year it's Dusseldorf, perhaps when I get back I'll be able to provide answers. I note from my little red dictionary that Dusel (admittedly with only one s) means dizziness, stupor, luck, quite a mix. Might they be prophetic?
ReplyDelete