Wednesday, June 19 The next
Wednesday, June 19
The next day, she had departed for her own dig in Chianti, and work resumed on the hill, in our trench at a redoubled pace because of the work lost yesterday.
As we were warned would be the case, certain tensions among our workers were beginning to surface. In our trench, these mostly centered around Theodonato.
His conversation was beginning to grate on the nerves of his trenchmates. As Johnnies, you are all familiar with the Ill-Advised Religion Conversationalist? Certain of you will recall Mr. O’Keefe of late memory, but all of you will recognise the person who prefaces every comment with "[Source I like and believe implicitly] says [this] which is obviously right, I bet you didn’t know that."
The source which Theodonato liked and believed implicitly was one Pater Polcus, a teacher at his school, and soon everyone on the hill who had conversed with Theodonato for any length of time was sick of hearing his name.
My quarrel with him wasn’t on his arguing style - I had seen it before often enough to have a certain immunity to it, and to know better than to engage it. My quarrel with him was on the circumstance of his laziness. Ugh! The little creature would stand there, with his baggy pants hanging so low that they made his thighs appear to be his hips, and complain out of her hearing about how hard Basilitta worked us, occasionally lifting a spoonful of dirt into his bucket, and taking frequent water breaks.
If there is one thing I cannot abide, it is someone who does not even make an effort. It was not that he was a naturally weak person who really was exerting himself by the effort he was putting forth, it was that he didn’t seem to understand the concept of "work" - of physical labor, of being responsible for the completion of a task - at all!
My manner toward him grew increasingly curt.
You should publish this stuff. Well, I suppose it is already published, electronically at least. But I would just love to see this in a book.
October 13th, 2002 at 12:15 amDude! dude! Moira likes my writing! ::rolls around burbling, without much dignity at all::
October 13th, 2002 at 12:30 amI probably shouldn’t say it because then it will make people be all unspontaneous and all, but it really makes me happy when people like my writing, in a different way even than if they like any of my other creations.
It makes sense too - I mean, I like admiration with the greedy love of any child who’s firstborn in the extreme, but if someone likes my writing, then I’ve succeeded in something better than admiration.
October 13th, 2002 at 12:53 am