The Wright boys
If you enjoy being ill, may I suggest a career working with children. I woke up this morning with my second flu-like fever in three months. That’s unheard of for me and the only logical explanation is that for the first time in my adult life, I’m being constantly exposed to the germ harboring creatures more commonly known as ‘children.’
It’s those damn Wright boys. They’re the ones I tutor during the week. I don’t worry so much about catching anything from Benny as I do his younger brother Johnny. This may be irrational but I think it has something to do with temperament. Benny and I get along quite well but we’re different sorts of people. He’s charismatic, outgoing and imaginative. He likes to paint and design things. I don’t worry about catching anything from him because I figure he is different from me on a very basic, even cellular, level.
On the other hand, every time Johnny sneezes in my presence, it’s a one-way ticket to Virusville. I’m not a firm believer in this sort of thing but I have to point out first off that he and I share both a Western astrological sign and a Chinese astrological sign. We are both Taurus Tigers. More pragmatically, he prefers math and spelling just as I did as a child. I have always preferred subjects with clear rules and right answers. And he shies away from anything that is ambiguous or that requires imagination, which I find very sensible of him since figuring stuff out and making stuff up is so tiresome, really.
What Johnny and I have most strongly in common is a disinterest in social expectations. When you speak to him, he is just as likely to ignore you as to respond. He doesn’t ignore you to make a point. It’s more like you have simply failed to engage him in any significant way and so you do not exist. This has been deemed “weird” behavior on his part by other people.
That makes me laugh because it is when Johnny is at his absolute weirdest that I see our similarities most clearly. Sometimes it is almost like I am seeing myself in him, and when this happens, I suddenly understand what it may have been like to have my own child. That’s worth a few extra fevers this year, don’t you think?
Tags: Nong Khai, Thailand
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